
Gass 







JAMES Mclaughlin 

L'. >>. Indian Inspector 



MY FRIEND THE 
INDIAN 



BY 

JAMES McLaughlin 

UNITED STATES INDIAN INSPECTOR 

FORMEBLT AGENT TO THE SIOUX AT DEVILS LAKE 

AND STANDING ROCK AGENCIES 

NORTH DAKOTA 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

0i>t iM'ott^itie pxt^ CambriDfle 

1910 



£■'7 



/.i 



COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY JAMES MCLAUGHLIN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published April iqio 



©C1A261167 



TO MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

WHOSE GOOD PARTS SURVIVE 

AS A MONUMENT OVER THE 

GRAVES OF A VANISHING RACE 



m 



u 



PREFACE 

A WORD of explanation may be granted a man 
who has spent the greater part of a rather busy 
life in fields far remote from literary labor, 
and who now finds himself thrust into a position 
where he and his motives may be misjudged. 

Let me say that this work was not undertaken with- 
out serious thought and many misgivings. Not that I 
had no story to tell, but that I doubted my capacity 
to put into readable form the things I have seen or had 
a part in, and the conclusions I have drawn from my 
observations. For thirty-eight years I have lived 
among, or had oflScial dealings with, a race of people 
little understood by the whites who have displaced 
them in carrying out the immutable law of the sur- 
vival of the fittest. It is not the least of my possessions 
that I hold the confidence of these people. I may say 
now that in the following pages I have said nothing 
that will jeopardize the relation that is as a bond be- 
tween the red men of the West and me. 

My friends in official and private life have been 
good enough to assume that what I know of the In- 
dian, of his losing struggle for an existence according 
to his own ideals, of his manner of living, mode of 
thought, habit in action and repose, and of the things 
that have happened to him on the long trail he has 
traveled in the processes of evolution since I first be- 
came intimate with him on the plains of Dakota in 
1871, might be worth setting down for the information 
[ vii] 



PREFACE 

of my contemporaries and the correction of some 
errors which are, unfortunately, but too common. 
Under the constant urging of these perhaps too partial 
friends, this work was undertaken. I had thought to 
use the autobiographical style throughout, but it was 
so necessary to incorporate in the work momentous 
occurrences in which I had no part, but which were 
described to me by the red men who participated in 
them, that I have not always adhered to this style. 
The things I have related of my own knowledge may 
be depended upon as being as nearly correct as may 
be, allowing for human defects ; those other — and 
perhaps more important — matters which are given 
on the relation of the participants, tell the Indian's 
side of many a disputed event. I have exercised due 
care to accept no statement of fact, unless the person 
responsible for it was known to me to be worthy of 
credence. 

The following pages were written at agencies and 
training-schools in many reservations, from Standing 
Rock, North Dakota, to Round Valley, California. 
I do not know that they carry the atmosphere in 
which the events treated occurred and were written 
of, but I do know that sincerity of purpose, strength- 
ened by the environment of Indian life as it is to-day, 
has actuated the writing of every word. And the work 
must stand as it is — or fall. 

Following as I do in the footsteps of the men of dis- 
tinction in the learning of the books and the fields who 
have written of the Indian as he is and as he is not, 
I must throw upon the shoulders of these partial 
friends, who urged me to this work, the responsibility 
for my emergence from the gloom of the council-fire, 

[ viii ] 



PREFACE 

from the sordid surroundings of the Indian of to-day, 
into the limelight of that publicity which shines on the 
man who has the temerity to put himself into a book. 
I can make no claim to the use of those literary graces 
which might adorn a tale, but I have tried in this 
writing to discharge what I have been told is a duty. 
If the contention is made that I have written from the 
Indian rather than from the white man's point of view, 
then I have no rejoinder to make, but am willing to 
rest content in the knowledge that I have done justice 
to "My Friend the Indian." 



CONTENTS 



I. Moving into the Indian Country 



1 
16 



II. On the Threshold of Civilization 

III. Life with the Agency Indians . . 

IV. Brave Bear and the Only One 40 

V. When Cupid Camps with the Sioux ... 59 

VI. How Crow King stopped the Medicine Men 77 
VII. The Great Buffalo Hunt at Standing Rock 97 
VIII. The Battle of the Little Big Horn . . .117 
IX. The Battle of the Little Big Horn, Con- 
tinued 136 

X. Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull's View of the 

Custer Tragedy 162 

XI. When Sitting Bull's Medicine failed . . 179 
XII. The Death of Sitting Bull 194 

XIII. How the Indian gets his Name 223 ^' 

XIV. Indian Sympathies 237 

XV. Permanent Indian Villages 249 

XVI. On the Making and Breaking of Treaties 260*^ 

XVII. Modern Treaty-Making 290 

XVIII. Captain Jack and his Modocs 315 

XIX. The Masterly Retreat of Joseph and his 

Nez Perces 344 

XX. The Unwhipped Utes 372 

XXI. Give the Red Man his Portion 388 

Index 405 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

James McLaughlin, United States Indian Inspector 

Frontispiece 

An Untamed Indian 12 

Crows dancing the Omaha or Grass Dance . . 32 
An Indian Dandy. Young Crow making his Toilet 

FOR the Dance 40 

Spotted Tail 72 

Crow King 90 

Chief Gall 120 

Curly, a Survivor of the Custer Command in the 

Little Big Horn Fight, with his Wife and 

Child 158 

Sitting Bull 184 

Lieutenant Bull Head in Indian Costume .... 216 
The Standing Rock Indian Police, Survivors of 

THE Sitting Bull Fight 220 

Rain-in-the-Face 226 

John Grass 278 

Two Moons, Northern Cheyenne Chief . . , . . 306 

Chief Joseph 346 

Finis 382 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

CHAPTER I 
MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

Wherein the Personal Element is Necessarily Obtruded — Changes 
that have come about in a Generation — Leaving St. Paul for Fort 
Totten — Five Hundred Miles by Bull-Team — Getting Acquainted 
with the Indians. 

FOR thirty-eight years I have been saying " How" 
to the Indian man rather more frequently than 
I have been permitted to salute the white man 
according to his forms. When first, as an employee 
of the government, I answered the grave salutation 
of the red man, the buffalo roamed at will over the 
great plains of the Sioux country; the Indian stood 
just without the threshold of civilization ; the mailed 
fist of the military was cufiing the untutored men 
of the grass-lands into a sense of the beneficence of 
the peace policy inaugurated by General Grant ; the 
iron horse had not crossed the Minnesota bound- 
ary ; the dull, plodding ox was the courier and herald 
of the culture that was stowed in embryo in the 
prairie schooner; Chicago was just beginning to 
throw off its swaddling-clothes under a blanket of 
smoke; St. Paul was the frontier to the northwest, 
and bad men flourished in the towns to the west and 
south on the borderland beyond the Missouri; Jim 
Fisk was a king in Wall Street, and the uncrowned 
[1 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

kings of the people who lived in tepees were entirely 
ignorant of the existence of the lords of high finance. 

And that was only a generation ago. In the span of 
a life whose better years have been spent very close to 
the scent of the tepee smoke, I have seen the Indian 
prostrated by the hand he kissed, and biting the 
hand that fed him; I have held savage passions in 
check when the Indian stood ready to spring in bloody 
protest on the white man whose coming he resented 
and whose beneficent intent he did not understand. 
I have, even more frequently, stood between the 
white man and the Indian whose rights he contem- 
plated taking from him by the processes of what we 
have come to describe as benevolent assimilation. 
While I enjoyed and still enjoy the friendship of white 
men who are very dear to me, I have done many 
things that were dictated rather by a sense of the rights 
of the red man than by the promptings of racial affili- 
ation, and I hold to nothing more firmly, am proud of 
nothing so much as of the fact that my red friends of 
the West have given me the title of friend. 

It is a small thing to be proud of, some one will 
say, the friendship of the Indian. I say it is much to 
have been able to guide the uncertain steps of a sim- 
ple people across the threshold of civilization, and 
help to lead them to a realization of the domination of 
the white man and the impending extinction of their 
race as an element in the great affairs of men ; to have 
been able to help convince the Indian that he would 
gain by bartering his position as a free agent following 
the dictates of his nature and keeping to the traditions 
and lands of his ancestors. I would not be understood 
as claiming for myself any undue prominence in this 
[2] 



MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

work: I was part of the machine organized by the 
government for the civilization of the Indian, and as 
a part of that organization I did the work that was 
appointed me by such means as I could devise. The 
predecessors of my generation of Indian officials, 
men of heart and brain and brawn, who had the 
pioneer work among the Indians, accomplished much 
as individuals, notwithstanding the fact that they 
had been isolated. When I entered the service the 
military arm was the only power that appealed to 
the Indian, To the men of my time was appointed 
the task of taking the raw and bleeding material 
which made the hostile strength of the plains Indians, 
of bringing that material to the mills of the white 
man, and of transmuting it into a manufactured pro- 
duct that might be absorbed by the nation without 
interfering with the national digestion. In doing 
my part toward bringing about this transmutation, 
I went to the Indian, instead of sitting in my office 
and waiting for the Indian to come to me. The duty 
was not always congenial ; it sometimes led to things 
and places that I would not have elected to seek out. 
But it all brought me very close to the red man. I 
believe I came to understand Indian human nature; 
I found that, under the blanket in which the Indian 
shrouded himself, there was a heart and mind alto- 
gether human, but undeveloped. I believe that the 
Indian was a man before outrage and oppression 
made him a savage. I have known him as a savage, 
a fighting man, in the pride and insolence of his 
strength ; I have known him as a sage in council, then 
as a beggar with the pride starved out of him. I have 
sat with him at his feasts and councils. I have not 
[3] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

asked more of him than he could give, nor promised 
more than I could fulfill. It must not be supposed that 
I took this attitude from motives higher than have 
inspired other men who have dealt with the Indian. 
It was early made manifest to me that the policy of 
simple honesty was the only possible policy to apply 
to commerce with the red man. 

I say these things, not in a vainglorious spirit, 
but to justify myself in asserting a right to the title 
of friend of the Indian. If I have come to know the 
Indian intimately and understandingly, I have earned 
the right to tell of him as I know him, and these pages 
are justified. 

In the later sixties an impossible condition had 
arisen in the relations of the white man and the In- 
dian. The Caucasian had wheeled the car of progress 
up to the border of the Indian land, and had been 
compelled to halt until the red man had been coerced, 
cajoled, or compelled to get out of the way. Coercion 
and cajolery had been pretty well worn out on the 
Indian, and he had come to some sort of knowledge 
of the fact that he must make a stand. During the 
Civil War, and in the unsettled period succeeding it, 
he had broken loose from the leading-strings of the 
agents and had things pretty much his own way. 
His roaming had not been materially interfered with, 
and there is no doubt that he felt very well able to 
take care of himself without any guidance from the 
white man. The care that had been bestowed upon 
him when he consented, theretofore, to render him- 
self amenable to the arguments offered — backed by 
fleshpots — by the whites, was not just what would 
[4] 



MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

appeal to any man, white or red. There had been a 
good deal of chicanery in the administration of In- 
dian affairs. He had been starved into rebellion and 
beaten — sometimes — into submission. But during 
the war he had tasted again the delights of practically 
unhampered freedom. That this freedom took the 
form of horrid license at times was shown by the awful 
outbreaks indulged in on the frontiers. Those of the 
Indians who lived in countries which were not yet 
desired by the whites were living a wild, free life in 
the midst of what they regarded as plenty. There 
is no doubt that the roving bands were a menace to 
travel on the plains, and that they would have to be 
put on reservations if the white man was to be per- 
mitted to carry out the great promise of which the 
time was pregnant. 

The entire regular army — or practically all of it — 
was afield in pursuit of the Indians. General Sheri- 
dan, whose opinion of the people he was engaged in 
checking or fighting was summed in the phrase, 
"There are no good Indians but dead Indians," was 
in command in the field on the frontier. General 
Sherman, whose notion of dealing with the Indian 
was expressed in the statement that they must be 
suppressed by "merciless and vindictive warfare," 
was at the head of the army. These same sentiments, 
as regarded the whites, were evidently held to by the 
chiefs of the fierce and warlike tribes of Teton Sioux, 
the Cheyennes, Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, and 
others, whose business was the chase primarily, but 
plunder and war when ill-treatment gave excuse for 
reprisals. In view of the expressed sentiments of the 
great military leaders of the times, the attitude of the 
[5] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Indian is not calculated to cause great surprise — 
viewed now at a distance of thirty-five or forty years. 
At the time of the accession of General Grant to the 
presidency every man's hand was raised against the 
Indian, and, it must be admitted, the Indian had his 
hand raised against white men generally. I do not 
mean that all the Indians were inclined to the war- 
path, but the greater portion of the warlike tribes were 
afield and ready for trouble. 

And they were a very different body of men, phys- 
ically, from the Indians of to-day. They wore an 
air of sturdy independence. They were equipped ac- 
cording to their natural requirements. Their minds 
were generally attuned to magnificent ideas of time 
and distance. They abhorred the limitations that 
the white man accepts as affecting his dwelling-place. 
They were foes to be reckoned with, or they might be 
converted into friends worth the having. It is a matter 
for profound regret that the Indian of that day could 
not have been advanced to his present knowledge of, 
and capacity for, civilized pursuits without being 
subjected to the debasing and degenerating physical 
and moral conditions that were inseparable from the 
processes of transmutation. 

Just previous to the inauguration of General Grant, 
commissions, composed largely of military men, had 
proposed treaties to the more important of the tribes. 
They had accepted the treaties, or some of their chiefs 
had; and when General Grant, in his inaugural, 
proclaimed the peace policy in dealing with the In- 
dian, there was a fair prospect that the shedding of 
blood on the frontier would cease. And it might have 
ceased if the Indian could have been protected from 
[6] 



MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

his fool friends in authority, and the white man freed 
in the smallest degree from the promptings of cupidity 
that would tolerate no delay in grasping the riches 
that had been the portion of the red man. 

From the time of the signing of the treaties of 1868 
up to the date of my entrance into the Indian service, 
in 1871, there had been very large accessions to the 
number of Indians living at the agencies. On the 
extreme frontier there had been fighting, and many 
isolated but bloody encounters took place. But the 
Indian was different from what he had been a few 
years previously. In the language of the bounding 
West in which he made his habitat, it may be said 
that, in 1871, the Indian was " halter-broke but he had 
not yet been bitted." That was to come later, when 
the bloody arbitrament of war had been appealed to 
and the mighty tide of white men had engulfed and 
submerged the red bands that stood in the way to the 
setting sun and fortune. The operation of the law of 
the survival of the fittest has not been applied, accord- 
ing to the Indian canons of fitness, and the great men 
of the red race, the last of a race of physical giants, 
have passed away in the years that have intervened 
since 1871. They have not yet been succeeded by the 
race of mental giants that should follow them. But 
in the process of eliminating the big men of the race, 
some stirring events took place. In some of these 
events I had a part, of many I was an interested ob- 
server. And the relation of these events will properly 
include the story of the passing of the Indian of 
yesterday. 

Born in 1842, in the province of Ontario, of Irish 
and Scotch ancestry, — an accident of birth the dis- 
[7] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

tinction of which I gladly share with some millions 
of my contemporaries, — I arrived in Minnesota in 
1863, with two strong, bare hands, and entered into 
an apprenticeship for a career among the Indians 
by becoming acquainted with many of them and of 
their mixed bloods at St. Paul, Mendota, Wabasha, 
Faribault, and other places in that then frontier 
state. I had acquired some slight knowledge of the 
Sioux language, and when, in 1871, Major W. H. 
Forbes was appointed agent at Devils Lake agency, 
in what is now North Dakota, and offered me a place, 
with virtual charge of the outfit he was taking into 
the Sioux country, I was in some measure equipped 
for the position by an understanding of the manners 
and customs of the Sioux. Looking back down the 
vista of years, I see now that I was not nearly so well 
equipped for a life among the Indians as I thought 
I was when I mounted a horse and navigated a bull- 
train of twenty yoke of cattle and ten wagons out 
through the streets of St. Paul in the early morning 
of July 1, 1871. 

The expedition started from the present location 
of the Hotel Ryan, St. Paul, and it had taken many 
days and nights of hard work to equip the train 
with the numerous articles necessary for the estab- 
lishment of a post beyond the outskirts of civiliza- 
tion. St. Paul was not the metropolis then that it is 
now. There were outfitting places enough, and a 
bull-train starting for the frontier was not such a rare 
sight as to prompt the inhabitants to get out of bed 
to see us off. 

Major Forbes, who was a Christian gentleman and 
a good friend, was quite prominent in the Northwest 
[8] 



MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

in those days. He had been chief commissary of 
subsistence under General H. H. Sibley during the 
Indian troubles, in war-time, in Minnesota, and had 
served as president of the territorial council and post- 
master at St. Paul. He was closely connected with 
the leading men of his state, counting among his 
closest friends General H. H. Sibley, Governor Alex- 
ander Ramsey, Right Reverend John Ireland, now 
archbishop of St. Paul, Commodore N. W. Kittson, 
and General John B. Sanborn. His health was not 
good at the time he was appointed to the Devils 
Lake agency, and it was understood that the work 
would largely fall upon me — understood, at least, by 
Major Forbes. 

Devils Lake is situated something like a hundred 
miles west of the Red River of the North, in North 
Dakota. From time immemorial it had been the re- 
sort of the Sioux, the natural phenomena manifested 
in and about the lake appealing to the superstitions 
of the Indians. It was called by the Sioux "Minne- 
waukon," spirit, or sacred water — suffering in the 
translation as so many of the Sioux names of people 
and places did. The lake, strongly impregnated with 
salts and iron, is very brackish, and there are innu- 
merable whirlpools, all of which were attributed by 
the Sioux to the activity of the spirit that had its abode 
in the lake and the surrounding country. While the 
phenomena that were not understood may have 
menaced the Indian through his superstitious fears, 
the material attractions of the country quite over- 
shadowed the immaterial drawbacks. It was a great 
buffalo country. The mighty bison roamed the un- 
dulating prairie in uncounted numbers, moving in 
[9] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

very early days up to and along the Red River and 
the Canadian lakes, and then away down to the great 
plains to the southwest. As the settlement along the 
Red River drove the buffalo back out of the valley, 
the great herds made the Canadian boundary, or 
thereabouts, the limit of their grazing land, and in the 
fifties and sixties they occupied the country around 
Big Stone Lake, the James River valley, and westward 
over to and beyond the Missouri River. In the country 
about Devils Lake they had been very numerous, 
and had lingered there until the Red River half- 
breeds and Indians became too thick, disappearing 
from that country in 1868. 

The Red River half-breeds had for many years 
made Devils Lake the scene of the summer hunts. 
They were descendants of the French voyageurs, 
who had married the daughters of the northern tribes 
and who had grown greatly in numbers and estab- 
lished for themselves a local habitation on the Red 
River, after the founding of the headquarters of the 
Hudson's Bay Company, at, or near, what is now 
Winnipeg. They were a happy-go-lucky lot, leading 
an easy-going existence in the Indian style when they 
were abroad, and after the fashion of the frontier 
white man in their permanent habitations. Some day, 
some one will arise who will write the epic of the Red 
River half-breed, and the world will be the richer for 
a knowledge of these people, half Indian, half French, 
having the capacity for endurance of the one race and 
the vivacity and appreciation of enjoyment of the 
other, — of their devotion to primitive Christianity on 
the one hand and their wild indifference to all tram- 
mels on the other. They trapped in the winter, did 
[10] 



MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

service as voyageurs and freighters, and hunted the 
buffalo for the hides and pemmican. They did all the 
freighting for the old fur companies, and the screech- 
ing protest of the wooden axles of the carts, which 
they formed into trains miles long, could be heard on 
the prairie long before the outfit came into sight, their 
carts being built entirely of wood, with no ironwork 
whatever in the construction, not even an iron nail 
being used. The preparation of pemmican may not 
have originated with the Red River half-breeds, but 
they most assuredly preserved the art of making it. 
Pemmican was made of buffalo-meat, which was 
dried and then pounded into pulp; hides of buffalo 
calves were made into sacks that were quite impervi- 
ous ; the sacks were filled with the lean meat ; the tal- 
low of the animals slaughtered was then melted and 
poured into the sacks, the tops sewed up, and when 
the mass hardened it would keep almost indefinitely. 
Pemmican formed the most nutritious and easily 
portable article of food, and was of great value to 
travelers who made long distances over plains where 
meat could not always be obtained. It was the ar- 
ticle of diet most to be depended upon, and with very 
little pemmican in his pack, a plainsman could travel 
an incredible distance without fear of lacking ample 
subsistence. In the neighborhood of Devils Lake, 
an enormous quantity of this frontier delicacy was 
made and sold to the Hudson's Bay and American 
Fur companies. 

These half-breeds made a permanent camp on the 

south side of Devils Lake, and used that for a base 

in their hunting expeditions, and here they had lived 

for years, generally on excellent terms with the nomad 

[11] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Indians who hunted in the same country. It was for 
the purpose of locating these wandering bands of 
Indians that the reservation had been established on 
the south side of Devils Lake. The Indians roamed 
that section of the country from beyond the Minne- 
sota border to away up north of the international 
boundary — not yet surveyed and defined. The Cut 
Head, Yanktonai, and bands of Santees were numer- 
ous enough. Some of them were people who had been 
frightened out of the vicinity of the Minnesota settle- 
ments by the depredations of their kinsmen of the 
Medawakanton, Wahpakoota, Sisseton, and Wahpe- 
ton bands during the Minnesota Massacre, in 1862. 
They were without a reservation home, and they con- 
gregated at Devils Lake, on the appointed reserva- 
tion, voluntarily. It had been provided in the estab- 
lishment of the reservation, that when five hundred 
Indians had gathered there an agent should be ap- 
pointed. A military post had already been established 
and garrisoned by United States troops. About this 
post, or in the neighborhood, about seven hundred 
Indians had congregated, and it was to minister to 
these people that I started from St. Paul that morning 
in July thirty-eight years ago. 

My old friends of the frontier would remember a 
trip with a bull-team across the meadow-like prairies 
of northwestern Minnesota and Dakota in the early 
seventies as a sort of progressive picnic — forgetting 
the heart-breaking encounters with oxen that would 
not move when they should, and could not be headed 
off when a sudden stop was needful ; the breaking 
down in places far remote from repair-shops, and the 
remedying of the breaks according to first principles 
[12] 




AN UNTAMED INDIAN 



MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

in travel ; the camping in a strange country ; the pur- 
suit of runaway cattle. They are all a joke to me 
now, and the story would not at all appeal to the man 
who leaves St. Paul, Minnesota, in a Pullman on the 
palatial Northern Pacific train about midnight, and 
eats his late breakfast before he reaches Jamestown, 
North Dakota, in the morning ; so I am not going to 
dwell on that trip of five hundred miles. There were 
in the party Andy Atkinson of Faribault, wagon- 
maker ; Hypolite Dupis, a character and frontiersman 
who came into the country in 1831 ; Ben Nesbitt, 
a colored man, who was an object of much curiosity 
to the Indians of the plains. He was one of the few 
black men in that part of the Indian country in those 
days. There was another, named Isaiah, who had 
lived among the Standing Rock Indians for many 
years, and who was killed in the Custer battle. He 
was with the white forces, and the Indians took a hor- 
rible revenge on his corpse when they found that he 
was among the dead soldiers. Two others, Haines and 
Lechner, white men, made up the list of employees. 

The country through which the trail led, after I 
left St. Cloud, Minnesota, lay in a general way along 
the road that had been established as a post-route, 
which led away to the west, through Dakota and 
Montana, and up into Idaho, reaching the mining- 
camps. In 1867 and 1868, military posts had been 
established at different points along the route, with a 
view to protecting the mail-carriers from the maraud- 
ing Indians. Major Charles Ruffee, now of Brainard, 
Minnesota, had the mail contract, and he had suf- 
fered great losses from the spoliation to which he had 
been subjected by roaming or hostile bands. I believe 
[13] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

he still has a claim for a considerable amount of 
money which has never been allowed or paid. Gen- 
eral Terry took a military expedition into the country, 
and established and left garrisons at posts called Forts 
Pembina, Ranson, Totten, Stevenson, Buford, and 
then over into Montana. These posts did not all lie 
along the direct trail, but were calculated to protect 
the adjacent country. There were other posts estab- 
lished later, at Jamestown and Bismarck, and at the 
eastern end of the chain was Fort Abercrombie on 
the Red River of the North. The country west of the 
Red River was entirely devoid of white settlement 
except for the military posts. It is almost inconceiv- 
able that this should have been the fact ; but in those 
days there was no Fargo, no Jamestown ; Bismarck 
was still in the future, and Alexander McKenzie was 
bending his genius in some other direction than boom- 
ing the future capital. It was not until the next 
year that the Northern Pacific crossed the Red River, 
taking the white man along in its wake — it was not 
safe to venture too far in front or to either side. In 
the summer of 1872 Jamestown was a roaring camp, 
and that fall the road went out to the Missouri. At 
that day so terrifying was the winter to the people who 
had not become inured to it, that no attempt was 
made to operate the railroad west of the Red River 
except in the summer-time. 

And this was the country I was compelled to travel 
through to reach the military post at Fort Totten, 
beside which the Devils Lake agency was to be es- 
tablished. The military — the fort was garrisoned 
by three companies of the Twentieth Infantry — was 
occupying a new set of buildings; the old post was 
[14] 



MOVING INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY 

abandoned for agency use and occupied forthwith. 
It had been built in rather primitive fashion, and with 
a view of impressing the Indians rather than of add- 
ing to the attractions of the landscape. Around the 
buildings, some of which were still occupied by the 
mechanics attached to the post and for stabling pur- 
poses, was built a substantial log-stockade. The new 
post, partly erected the year before and completed 
after my arrival, was of brick and very presentable. 

Here I was welcomed in such fashion as might be 
expected by Indians who did not know what might 
be looked for from the new institution. They were 
not exactly cordial. They were blanket Indians — 
essentially I mean, and in their mental attitude. 
Along the lake there were a number of half-breeds 
from the Red River, who had lingered after the 
buffalo had left the country. They gathered about 
and gave us a vivacious welcome, with "bonjours" 
in plenty, as well as offers of assistance — which 
were declined firmly but kindly. 

Tio Waste (Pretty Lodge), who was also known 
as Little Fish, of the Sissetons, Wanata of the Cut 
Heads, and Left Bear of the Wahpetons, all promi- 
nent men, put themselves on the reception committee 
and came in to get acquainted. The rest of the seven 
hundred Indians, scattered about the reservation, 
apparently inspired by the reverse notion of the society 
woman's idea of etiquette, waited for me to go out 
and leave cards at their residences — which attitude 
they overcame when the fall set in and they became 
hungry and cold — the ordinary condition of the 
plains Indian at that day. 



CHAPTER II 
ON THE THRESHOLD OF CIVILIZATION 

The Indian looking in at the "Open Door" — The Disposition and 
Attitude of the Sioux — "Bad Men" on the Border — The Rise to Fa- 
vor of Sitting Bull — The Origin of the Sioux Bands and their Names. 

IN that day thirty thousand Sioux roamed the plains 
and valleys of the great Northwest. Those of 
the tribe residing on the east side of the Missouri 
River, having been more in contact with the whites 
and having had their fiercer propensities curbed by 
starvation, — incident to the disappearance of the 
big game, — were no longer to be compared with 
their warlike cousins of the Teton Sioux. They were 
visited by and visited with the Tetons to some extent, 
and those constant goings and comings had a demor- 
alizing effect on them, while the Tetons still had 
game in their country to rely upon and were indiffer- 
ent to the blandishments of the white man who had 
annuity goods to distribute. There were no rations 
for the Devils Lake Indians, and they were held on 
the reservation because they were peacefully disposed 
rather than because they could get any immediate 
gain from being enrolled at the agency. Since the 
Minnesota Massacre these bands located in North 
Dakota had roamed between the Minnesota settle- 
ments and the country of the renegades from Min- 
nesota who had crossed the Canadian boundary-line 
in fear of the punishment that threatened them for 
[16] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF CIVILIZATION 

their part in that ghastly affair. Another thing that 
held them was their affection for the soil. This is a 
distinguishing characteristic of the Indian — love of 
his native country. Had the Indians been the nomads 
they were regarded, there would have been very few 
Indian wars, for outbreaks were nearly always caused 
by attempts to dispossess the people of their ancestral 
hunting-grounds. The Medawakantons, Wahpakootas, 
Sissetons, and Wahpetons, comprising the somewhat 
undefined family of Santee Sioux, belonged in the 
country east of the Missouri, which might be broadly 
described as lying between that river and the Mis- 
sissippi. The Yanktons and Yanktonai — of which 
latter band the Cut Heads were a sub or seceded 
band — held a middle place between these people 
and the Tetons. The Tetons looked with some con- 
tempt on the eastern bands, and the latter affected 
to believe that the Tetons were below them and 
wanting in the intellectual development that had 
come through friendly contact with the whites. The 
Tetons were undoubtedly the finer people physically, 
and more high-spirited and independent. But then 
the buffalo lasted longer in their country. The bands 
I have enumerated were all well within the white 
man's sphere of influence at that time, and were wait- 
ing with the Indian patience to be subjected to the 
civilizing process — though they would have resented 
being told so. As a whole they were harmless, but 
individuals were in the habit of wandering off to the 
west occasionally, or going to the north and indulging 
in such exchange of courtesies as horse-lifting. 

In the trans- Missouri country it was altogether 
different. The Tetons were presumed, under the 
[17] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

treaty to which their chiefs, or some of them, had 
subscribed in 1868, to have a local habitation along 
the Missouri River. Their place was in the Great 
Sioux reservation, a magnificent domain extending 
from the Nebraska line to the forty-sixth parallel 
of latitude and from the Missouri River west to the 
one hundred and fourth degree of longitude. The 
extent of the reservation would appear to a white 
man to have been suflScient to hold the Teton Sioux. 
But it did not. They wanted elbow-room and they 
took it by roaming over the entire country north of 
the North Platte, up to the international boundary, 
and west to the Big Horn Mountains. They hunted 
the buffalo, made war on the Rees, the Mandans, 
the Gros Ventres, and Crows, when they wanted 
horses or were spoiling to fight: they affiliated with 
the Northern Cheyennes and Arapahoes. They held 
the borderland down to where the Kiowas and Co- 
manches came in contact with them, and the latter 
roamed the country to the point of contact with the 
Utes and Apaches, and held the border in a state of 
terror or anticipation of trouble, according to the 
mood of the Indians. 

At that time the border towns on all the western 
frontier except Minnesota and Dakota — where the 
peaceful east-Missouri Sioux stood between the set- 
tlements and the warlike and predatory tribes — 
had a considerable leaven of "bad men." Profes- 
sional Indian fighters who, on occasion, would turn 
their hands and ready guns to almost anything, from 
gambling to freighting through the Indian country 
and killing buffalo for hire, infested the smaller places. 
They constituted an element born of the times, and 
[18] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF CIVILIZATION 

they passed with the day of the warlike Indian through 
the institution and enforcement of law. But they 
added color to a time that was lurid enough; they 
kept the Indians irritated by the cheapness in which 
they held an Indian's life and his family, and, while 
many of them yielded great service in strenuous times, 
when the hatchet was dug up and the Indians were 
on the war-path, they were by no means the romantic 
individuals the writers have made them. They headed 
the adventures into the Indian country, and they were 
generally responsible for much of the deviltry of the 
Indians. A dead tough was a dead white man — if 
he had died at the hands of the Indians he was en- 
nobled and made a martyr by his death and the means 
of it, and furnished as good an excuse for attacking 
the Indians and driving them back as though his 
demise involved a real loss to society. 

Another distinct class of men living in those days 
at the outposts of civilization were the hunters and 
trappers and guides who dwelt in the Indian country, 
who were essentially men of peace, but possessed a 
large measure of personal courage. They were the 
real pioneers, for they attained to a knowledge of the 
Indian, and, accommodating themselves to the In- 
dian method of life, taught the red people to anticipate 
the coming of the white man. Men of this class fre- 
quently attached themselves to the agency staffs, and, 
knowing the language of the Indians, were extremely 
valuable to the officials, who too often were appointed 
from stations in civil life which had left them totally 
without knowledge of the people whom they were 
sent to control. The Indian of to-day himself stands 
much closer to civilized methods of life, has more 
[19] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

knowledge of the conveniences and comforts of ex- 
istence, than did these men who lived on the bor- 
der a generation ago. In western Dakota, along the 
Missouri River there were many exemplars of this 
class. They helped to open the country, they guided 
or guarded the early navigation of that stream, and 
the West of to-day lies under an obligation to them 
that would be discharged in any other than a republi- 
can country. It was a far cry from "Wild Bill" 
Hickok, who was killed in Deadwood in the early 
days, to "Charlie" Reynolds, Custer's scout, who 
died on the Little Big Horn ; but the men of whom 
they were types were numerous enough on the border 
in the early seventies, and each one of them contrib- 
uted after his fashion to clearing the way for the 
farmer and stockman who now occupies the country. 
About 1870 and 1871 a large proportion of the 
Teton Sioux were " out." The treaty of 1868, that had 
been signed by Red Cloud, of the Oglalas, and some 
other of the chiefs, was by no means to the liking of all 
of the Sioux. The signing of it had cost Red Cloud 
the loss of much of the influence he had wielded over 
the Sioux of his own and other bands. He had been 
the ideal chief, warlike and of abounding spirit, and 
lacking altogether in the qualities of mind that made 
Spotted Tail a diplomat and agency Indian. Spotted 
Tail, who had been a warrior of renown in his youth, 
came to understand that nothing was to be gained 
in a substantial way from fighting the whites. Red 
Cloud was inclined to fight or make peace as exist- 
ing conditions indicated, but he became one of the 
signatories to the treaty of 1868 without reckoning 
with his host, the young man. He had made several 
[20] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF CIVILIZATION 

appointments with the members of the commission 
seeking to make the treaty, but he had broken the en- 
gagements with contemptuous indifference, and when 
he did meet them at Laramie he insisted on having 
inserted in the treaty a provision permitting the Sioux 
to hunt in the ceded Indian lands outside of the Great 
Sioux Reservation. The treaty was an excellent one 
in many respects, and the Sioux came, in later years, 
to set great store by some of its provisions ; but Red 
Cloud was rejected by the uncontrollable element 
among the young fighting men of his people, who 
blamed him for signing any treaty. It was this condi- 
tion that gave Sitting Bull his opportunity. He pro- 
fessed to be, and was, a thorough hater of the whites. 
His medicine was Indian medicine, what the young 
man wanted, and he got a following altogether out 
of proportion to his merits as a leader, because he 
was essentially an unreconstructed Indian — which 
he remained to the day of his death. 

So it was that, in the early seventies, a great num- 
ber of the Sioux paid no attention to the fact that 
reservations had been appointed for them and that 
there were agents and agencies waiting for them. 
Their country was rich in buffalo ; they were full- 
blooded and well fed, — when they condescended 
to visit the agencies and take rations, they frequently 
took flour in sacks, emptied the flour out on the 
j prairie, and used the sacking to make clothing. They 
/ were opposed to the establishment of post and stage 
routes through their country, and there was a distinct 
prospect that they would interpose a strenuous ob- 
jection to the building of the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road. Indeed Major General W. S. Hancock, then 
[21] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

commanding the Department of Dakota, with head- 
quarters at St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote in 1871 an 
oflScial document in which he said that interference 
by the Sioux and the Montana Indians with the con- 
struction of the road might be expected, and that he 
was unable to put, at the time, troops enough into 
the country to hold the Indians in check. The event 
proved that his fears were not altogether well founded. 
The Indians might have felt that they were not strong 
enough to interfere with the work, many of the people 
having gone into the agencies for the winter and re- 
mained there. But there were many depredations 
and much bloodshed. The Indians sometimes had 
the best of the encounter with the whites, but more 
frequently the worst of it, and they were taught many 
bitter lessons. 

The country was unsafe generally, to the west of 
the agencies as far as the Montana settlements — 
where the Indian had early found that there was 
nothing to be gained in the way of glory or pelf. In 
those days there was not a ranchman between the 
Missouri River and the Rockies, and practically no 
settlement west of the Minnesota line, except in the 
southeastern part of the territory of Dakota; and it 
was not until the power of the Sioux was crushed 
utterly and the leaders were converted into agency In- 
dians that the white man on the prairie could reckon 
on having a neighbor within a day's travel. 

This condition to the west kept us unsettled at 
Fort Totten and the Devils Lake agency. The Cut 
Heads came and went between the reservation and 
the agencies on the Missouri River. They formed a 
connecting link between the two peoples. Sometimes 
[22] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF CIVILIZATION 

they came in great numbers, and the agency stores 
suffered in proportion. There was no provision for 
the issuance of gratuitous rations or goods to the 
Indians of Devils Lake agency. Under the treaty 
they could get nothing except in payment for labor, 
— a wise arrangement which did much more than 
anything else in the way of policy ever formulated by 
the white man in the matter of civilizing the Indian 
and making him self-dependent. The old, infirm, and 
indigent we had to take care of. But the visitor was 
on a different list from that in which the agency In- 
dian was enrolled. The agent was bound by custom 
to ration visitors from other reservations. If the vis- 
itors happened to be Cut Heads they were enrolled 
and assigned to the reservation. Sometimes they 
stayed; more frequently they remained through the 
winter, only to disappear to the west again when 
spring opened and there was a prospect of work at 
home in planting time. They must go and see their 
relatives. In the month of July, 1872, the enrolled 
population of the reservation fell off from 902 to 719. 
Sometimes they went off on excursions that involved 
reprisals against Indians from the north and west 
who had sneaked down and carried off their ponies. 
These expeditions were generally bloodless, but they 
kept things in a ferment. 

Some of them who had been far to the west, en- 
gaged in warfare, came in and settled down. There 
was the case of Standing Buffalo's people ; Standing 
Buffalo had been a man of importance among the 
Sisseton Sioux. At the time of the Minnesota Mas- 
sacre he had withdrawn himself and his following 
from the Sissetons. He was a friend of the whites and 
[23] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

did not want to be where he could be accused of any 
complicity in the outbreak. He went far to the west, 
into the Woody Mountain country, eventually, close 
to the hunting-grounds of the Crows, the hereditary 
enemies of all Sioux. He probably affiliated with the 
Assiniboines, who are of the Sioux family, and had 
a part in their wars with the Crows. He was killed 
in a battle in 1869, and his people, headed by Shipto, 
himself a man of standing, made their way back, 
down through the country of the Gros Ventres, the 
Arickarees, and the Mandans, and on, in a leisurely 
way, to the Devils Lake reservation, where they set- 
tled among their brethren. Shipto's influence was 
cast for the white man, and he laid aside his warlike 
tools and went to work. But for a long time he would 
hide his axe when anybody approached the place 
where he was working, feeling that it was degrading 
that a warrior should be seen engaged in manual 
labor. 

The ties of blood are, with the Indian, very bind- 
ing, and the ease with which various bands affiliated 
without losing their identity was, and is still, one of 
the peculiar features of these remarkable people. 

The Sioux were a great nation in remote times — 
as time is reckoned since history came to be written 
in this country. They were of the great Siouan or 
Dakota race, and it may have been that the nation 
was formed of the scattered people, who, having a 
common language, were allied for sociability or pur- 
poses of defense. They did not require this alliance 
because of their warfare with the whites, for during 
many years it was the boast of the Sioux, who was 
continually engaged in war with the tribes on all sides 
[24] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF CIVILIZATION 

of him, that he had never shed the blood of a white 
man. Their division into bands and the naming of 
those bands have always been a matter of specula- 
tion for bookish men who have studied the Indian. 
The general absence of traditional history among the 
Sioux prevents the acquisition of information as to 
how or when the bands were organized, but the names 
given them indicate, generally, a peculiarity or attrib- 
ute that accounts for the descriptive title they took or 
had bestowed upon them. The simplicity of thought 
of a simple people is shown in the meaning of these 
names. The habit of the Sioux, in this, will illustrate 
the general practice of all Indian tribes. 

The Cut Heads, whose name is literally translated, 
get their title from the fact that when they withdrew 
from the Yanktonai, there was a row over their se- 
cession and a fight. Their leader sustained a scalp 
wound and the name Cut Head was given them at 
once and accepted without protest or question. 

The Hunkpapas get their name from their heredi- 
tary right of pitching their tepees at the outer edge of 
the encampment commanding the entrance to the 
village, as defenders of the camp, the word "Hunk- 
papa" meaning the border or outer edge. 

The Oglalas' designation is not easily rendered. 
Among the Sioux, contempt and defiance for an in- 
dividual are expressed by extending the hand at 
arm's length and flicking the fingers toward the per- 
son to whom the opprobrium is directed. The mo- 
tion has been accepted as a deadly insult. It might 
be regarded as a sign for expressing contempt by 
throwing dirt in the face of another. When the Ogla- 
las, a family allied closely by blood to the Brule 
[25] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Sioux, fell under the leadership of a man ambitious 
to found a house of his own, who withdrew from the 
larger body, it is said that, in leaving the others, they 
expressed their contempt by making this sign and 
were immediately dubbed the "Dirt-Throwers." 

The Minniconjous acquired their name from their 
practice of planting close to a stream, Mini-akiya-oju, 
meaning " Planting-near- the- water," 

The Two-Kettle band suffers in its title by the Eng- 
lish translation, the Sioux designation meaning "Two 
Cookings." The man who established the family as 
a separate band made his boast that his people were 
not poor, that the hunter always provided enough 
food for two meals, or cookings, one pot being alto- 
gether insufficient to contain the meat his prowess 
as a hunter brought to the mess. 

Wahpeton means "Village in the Leaves," indi- 
cating a family characteristic, which led the people 
to live amidst the trees. The Wahpakootas are, liter- 
ally, "Leaf -shooters," the title coming from some 
custom that has been lost sight of. 

The Sans Arcs (without a bow) spring from a 
family or clan that, through improvidence or choice, 
failed to provide themselves with bows on the occa- 
sion of some expedition. The family from which the 
Blackfeet band of Sioux takes its title appeared one 
evening in the general camp, after an unsuccessful 
expedition, with their moccasins worn out and feet 
blackened from having passed through a burned 
prairie. The Loafers, a sub-band of the Brules, were 
obviously named from their laggard and unthrifty 
characteristics. Equally simple and significant of un- 
important events are the names of other bands, the 
[26] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF CIVILIZATION 

titles being bestowed by outsiders needing a descrip- 
tion, and being frequently based on some ridiculous or 
trifling incident. The proper name of the Sioux na- 
tion, Dakota or Lakota, bespeaks, however, a fitting 
appreciation of the importance of the tribe, the word 
"Dakodia" or "Lakodia" meaning kinsmen allied 
by a common language. 



CHAPTER III 
LIFE WITH THE AGENCY INDIANS 

Terrific Winters in the Early Days — An Entire Company of Sol- 
diers frozen to Death crossing the Plains — Dealing with the Indians 
without the Aid of Free Rations — Removal to Standing Rock Agency. 

IN the dull round of life at the Devils Lake agency 
during my first five years among the Sioux, no- 
thing stands out so much as the frightful stress 
of the winter months, when, isolated from the world, 
we were weather-bound for five or six months of the 
year. There is no sort of doubt in my mind that the 
climate in the far North was more severe in those days 
than it is now. We divided the year into two seasons, 
winter and summer. There were about seven months 
of the former, and five of the latter. It was no joke 
that the old-timer in the territory of Dakota indulged 
in when he said that his climate was made up of seven 
months winter and five months bad weather. During 
the winter, there was nothing to be done but to house 
up and keep as comfortable as possible. The mails 
were received at intervals marked by the weatherly 
conditions. The Indians did not interfere with the 
mail-carriers on the route that lay between us and the 
settlements ; but the stations were far apart and many 
a poor wretch met his death in crossing the prairie. 
A few years prior to my taking up a residence in the 
country, a detachment of soldiers making a winter 
march was overtaken by a blizzard and the entire 
\ 28 1 



LIFE WITH THE AGENCY INDIANS 

command frozen to death. This occurred in the 
neighborhood of Lake Traverse. Every winter some 
of our Indians were badly frozen on or near the reser- 
vation, but seldom fatally. The soldiers who were 
posted at the stations on the mail-route often suffered 
severely. Of these, there were two at each mail sta- 
tion, whose business it was to exercise a sort of patrol 
and maintain the stations as places of refuge for way- 
farers. The trails were little traveled in the winter 
months, and the soldiers led a life beside which that 
of the sheep-herders who live in the solitude of the 
great plains to-day is a round of gayety. 

Under the articles of the treaty of 1867, which pro- 
vided for the establishment of the agency at Fort 
Totten, no rations could be issued to the people except 
in cases of extreme destitution. Their life was a fright- 
fully hard one, but the method of treating the people 
was undoubtedly right. They were provided with 
work, cutting logs and wood for fuel and fencing, 
and paid in subsistence and clothing for what they 
did. Compelled as they were to habits of industry, 
in order that they might obtain the means of living, 
they soon forgot that it was beneath the dignity of a 
warrior to work. If they had been entitled to rations 
or money payments, they most assuredly would not 
have kept up the agency wood-supply, as they did. 
The old people and the indigent were supplied with 
the necessaries of life, but the others got only what 
they worked for. 

It was in 1875 that the death of Major Forbes oc- 
curred. His death was preceded by a long illness, 
which had left me in virtual charge of the agency at 
Devils Lake, and in May, 1876, I was appointed to 
[29] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

fill the vacancy. There were many applicants for the 
place, and an appointment was even made and then 
withdrawn because of opposition, and my appoint- 
ment followed. In 1880, I was offered the agency at 
Standing Rock. The place was an important one 
from the fact that many of the Indians had been out 
as hostiles, and they required treatment by a man 
who knew the Sioux. Father Stephen, who was later 
director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, 
with headquarters at Washington, was then the agent 
at Standing Rock. At the time there was a condition 
that required explanation, and I waited for the matter 
to be arranged. Some one had been guilty of tam- 
pering with the scales used in the weighing of the 
beef cattle delivered for the Indians, which had to be 
investigated and responsibility therefor determined. 
Consequently, it was the fall of the following year 
before I moved to Standing Rock. 

The sun-dance was the most baneful of the old-time 
practices of the Sioux people. It was not, as is gen- 
erally supposed, a function to test the personal cour- 
age of the candidates for place among the warriors. 
That was merely an incident of the ceremony. It was 
held for the purpose of propitiating by personal sac- 
rifice the Great Spirit, and placating the pernicious 
spirits of the earth. It was an oblation purely, the 
persons taking part desiring to show that they were 
willing to submit to personal suffering in the hope 
that the community would be blessed in the harvest, 
or in any undertaking in which they were about 
to engage. The sun-dance pole, which was usually 
about twelve inches in diameter at the base and twenty 
feet in length, was selected with much ceremony. 
[30] 



LIFE WITH THE AGENCY INDIANS 

After being carefully prepared, the larger end was 
set in the ground a sufficient depth to give it firmness. 
Throughout the preliminaries the medicine men 
fasted and prayed, and during the dance the ears 
of children were pierced. While the ceremony was 
in progress, and the candidates were suspended by 
lariats run through the muscles of their breasts or 
back, from a cross-bar situated near the top of the 
pole, the prayers and dancing went on without inter- 
ruption, the selected singers chanting in weird and 
mournful strains. The men fastened to the pole made 
good their self-immolation by staring continually at 
the sun, in consequence of which their eyes invariably 
became terribly inflamed. Some of the lookers-on 
would plead with the candidates that they be cut 
down, to which they would not consent. On the con- 
trary, they whistled continuously to show that they 
were not affected by their sufferings. Other candi- 
dates for the sacrifice had buffalo-heads attached to 
their bodies by lariats with skewers through their back 
muscles, and ran around jumping and dancing until 
the weight of the drag broke the flesh away. Among 
the Sioux, the sun-dance invariably continued three 
consecutive days, the test of courage and endurance 
being reserved for the last day. The lacerated wounds 
received no attention in the way of dressing or being 
cared for until the dance ended at sundown on the 
third day. At one of such dances, which I attended in 
1872, a young man had raw-hide thongs run through 
the muscles of his back, the thongs being attached 
to a cross near the top of the sun-dance pole, and 
another young man was fastened to the pole by thongs 
through the muscles of his breast. Both remained with 
[31] 



/ 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

their feet barely touching the ground, swaying back 
and forth for an hour or more before released by the 
sorely tried flesh giving way. 

Before leaving Devils Lake, I put a stop to a sun- 
dance, and believe that it has never been practiced 
there since. Learning that there was such a cere- 
mony in progress at Wood Lake, about ten miles east 
of Fort Totten, I took with me J. E. Kennedy, agency 
clerk, and Tawacihomini, an Indian policeman, and 
went to the scene of the dance. The Indians were in 
the midst of this barbarous ceremony when we broke 
through their ring and stopped the affair. It was 
good evidence of their subjection that they stopped 
without protest when ordered to desist, an outcome 
that would not have been possible a few years pre- 
vious, when such an attempt would doubtless have 
resulted seriously to the sacrilegious interloper. 

When I arrived at Standing Rock in September, 
1881, things were very different from the situation 
that had existed at Devils Lake. The hostiles, 
starved into submission and recently surrendered, 
were by no means tractable. Their attitude was that 
of sullen resentment. Hunger had driven them to the 
agency, and they were living on the reservation ; but 
they were still sore at heart, and not in a mood to ac- 
cept the leadership of the white man. Two things I 
conceived to be necessary to their betterment and ul- 
timate civilization. I was convinced that they should 
be led to become farmers if the reservation was adapted 
to agriculture; that stock-raising would permit too 
much roaming and confirm them in their nomadic 
habits. The other essential feature to the civilization 
of the Sioux was the schooling of the children under 
[32] 



LIFE WITH THE AGENCY INDIANS 

conditions that would lead them into the habits of 
the whites. I was measurably successful in showing 
them that industrious tillage of the soil would lead 
to prosperity, and successful, beyond my hopes, in 
bringing the children into school. The ties of affec- 
tion that bind the Indian child to the parent were the 
greatest bar to the educational work, and I have told 
elsewhere how, in the case of Crow King, that bond 
was used to lead them to school. 

I worked with the head men, and the others fol- 
lowed so well that last summer, when I was on the 
Standing Rock reservation, I found the greater part 
of the children in school. But the beginning was 
hard, up-hill work. The hostiles were outspoken in 
their resentment of white domination, I sometimes 
had to use drastic measures to make them reason- 
able or to establish my influence. One old fellow, 
named Long Soldier, about six feet, four inches in 
height, had been loitering about the agency ware- 
house for several days, and one day I asked him what 
his object was, and he replied, that he was watching 
to see that nobody stole any of the supplies that were 
placed there for the Indians. I informed him that 
his sentinelship in that respect was unnecessary, as 
I would see to that. He declared with a showing of 
ferocity, that the white men were all thieves and ene- 
mies of the Indians ; and he menaced me with a knife. 
He was a man of some standing among the hostiles, 
and it occurred to me at once that the time had come 
to impress him. I threw open my coat, and invited 
him to use his knife on me. I charged him with being 
a coward when he hesitated. Other Indians gathered 
around, and I insisted that he had not the courage to 
[33] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

kill the white man who he knew was his friend, but 
whom he treated as an enemy because of his bad heart. 
Another Indian, named Kill Eagle, came up, and took 
the knife away from him, rebuking him for his cow- 
ardice, and ordered him to leave for home at once, 
which he did. That same fellow came to me a few 
days later, and said he wanted me to be his friend; 
that he regarded me as just and courageous, and that 
he was convinced that the way of the white man was 
the right way. Such strenuous appeal as this was not 
often necessary in dealing with the people, but the 
argument offered them had to be such as would ap- 
peal to their intelligence, undeveloped as it was. 

The years from 1881 to 1890 made the formative 
period of the minds of the Standing Rock Sioux, for 
the era of peace and education that set in so strongly 
after the ghost-dancing had culminated in the death 
of Sitting Bull. It took several of these years for 
me to win the complete confidence of the hostiles. 
They were surly and suspicious, but when they were 
thoroughly won over, they made great and immediate 
progress. I made Gall and Crow King my friends, 
and they were important factors in leading the others 
to civilization. To the influence of these two men and 
John Grass, with others not so well known to the 
whites, but who were powerful among their people, 
might be ascribed the progress of the Indians under 
my charge. They were made to understand that the 
gradual withdrawal of Government assistance was 
not due to the indifference of the Government to their 
wants, but a means of making them self-dependent. 
A good many of the older Indians declined to accept 
the white man's burden of labor, but the able-bodied 
[34] 



i 



LIFE WITH THE AGENCY INDIANS 

amongst them soon came to understand that, while 
work might be degrading, according to the notion of 
a warrior, it was essential if the warrior did not want 
to starve to death. Sitting Bull always exerted a vi- 
cious influence over this unreconstructed element, and 
remained opposed to the white man's influence to the 
last. 

Grass, Gall, Crow King, and some of the others, 
especially the agency judges and police, fought Sit- 
ting Bull's influence at all times, and when he became 
menacingly obstreperous during the period just before 
his death. Gall asked to be armed. If he had been 
given the guns he asked for, the death of Sitting Bull 
might have been precipitated — also an internecine 
war might have resulted. 

There was one occasion when Sitting Bull appeared 
to have accepted the conditions of peace, but it was 
apparent afterwards that his attitude at the time of 
the dedication and unveiling of Standing Rock was 
inspired by a desire to take part in an affair that was 
essentially Indian, and had to do with the medicine 
of his people. 

The Standing Rock, from which the agency at Fort 
Yates took its name, was a remarkable petrifaction 
or stone formation in the shape of a woman with a 
child on her back. The figure was very life-like, and 
the Indians had no doubt that it was a petrifaction. 
I am inclined to believe that it was, myself, though 
it is not life-size. The resemblance between the stone 
and any one of a dozen Indian women with children 
on their backs who may be seen about its site any day, 
is striking enough to startle one. So many years ago 
that the story of its discovery is lost in the maze of 
[35] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

antiquity, the Sioux found the figure and ascribed to 
it a place in their spiritual beliefs. It was venerated 
as a sacred relic, but I never understood that any 
peculiar powers were attributed to it. It stood as a 
sort of fetich and was regarded with much reverence. 
It was the common property of the Teton Sioux, but 
it lay for years in the section occupied by the Lower 
Yanktonai, and that band was the protector of the 
rock. While the agency took its name from the rock, 
the petrifaction was located some five miles above the 
agency. I proposed to the head men that it be brought 
down to the agency, and set up on a pedestal placed 
on a height overlooking the Missouri, which height 
was known as Proposal Hill, owing to the fact that 
much of the courting indulged in by the young people 
of the Garrison occurred while strolling over its slopes. 
They acquiesced in this suggestion at once, and elabo- 
rate preparations were made for the setting up of the 
stone. 

A great council was held, and it was decided by the 
medicine men that the duty of dedicating and unveil- 
ing the stone could only be performed by some man 
possessing all the Indian virtues, and whose life was 
stainless. It was not an easy matter to pick out a 
man having these qualities, and there was much dis- 
cussion. While the matter was being decided, the 
rock was brought down to the agency and a pedestal 
erected. 

Along with this rock, there was another that was 
also good medicine, it being the petrifaction of a little 
dog, which Indian belief declared belonged to the 
woman and must be kept with her. 

There was a great deal of building going on about 
[36] 



LIFE WITH THE AGENCY INDIANS 

the agency at that time; and after the rocks were 
brought down, the smaller one, becoming mixed with 
the "nigger-heads" used for the building of a founda- 
tion wall, was built into a wall and lost. The little 
dog is not far removed from the figure of the woman 
at whose feet it lay for years, but it is part of the wall 
upon which one of the agency residences is built, a 
few rods back of the site of the standing rock. 

There was so much palavering and discussion as to 
the merits of various virtuous Indians, that the rock 
was ready for the dedication before a selection had 
been made. Eventually, it was decided that Fire 
Cloud, a member of Fire Heart's band of Blackfeet, 
possessed all the needful virtues, and he was desig- 
nated to perform the ceremony of dedication. 

Fire Cloud had been a hostile, and his peculiar 
virtues were intensely Indian, and therefore not of a 
character to appeal to the whites. He was known as a 
clean man and a most powerful worker on the spirit 
in the matter of making prayers. I have heard no- 
where more powerful or eloquent pleading than Fire 
Cloud was capable of when the spirit moved him. He 
undertook to make the stone ready for the dedication, 
and he indulged in much preparation himself. His 
heart and body had to be made clean for the work, 
and this required much medicine-making. The day 
before the date set for the unveiling of the stone. Fire 
Cloud spent in painting with much elaboration the 
figure of a woman. He used many colors, and each 
stripe applied meant something sacred in the symbol- 
ism of the medicine men of the Sioux. These sym- 
bolical figures were held secret by the medicine men, 
the common people not knowing anything about 
[37 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

them, and some of them were undoubtedly invented 
under the inspiration of the work engaged in. The 
night before the ceremony, the painting was com- 
pleted, except a few stripes that must be applied after 
all was done, and the figure, standing on a rock pedes- 
tal, was wrapped about in an ordinary blanket, and 
all was ready. The next day, the people gathered for 
the ceremony. Sitting Bull was there, his spirit appar- 
ently tamed, and he a peace advocate for the first time 
in his life. 

I talked to the people ; told them how fitting it was 
that the rock should be preserved and placed so that 
it might be seen for miles up and down the Missouri, 
to the end that travelers might know that the Sioux 
lived, and were protected, on the lands that had been 
their fathers'. Even the hostiles appeared to be grati- 
fied. Then Fire Cloud stood by the rock, and pro- 
nounced an invocation that was profoundly moving, 
coming as it did from an Indian who had hitherto 
shown no disposition to be at one with the whites. 
Addressing the Great Spirit, he prayed for peace, 
hoping that the erection of the monument would 
establish a lasting peace in all the land, between the 
Indians and the whites, and among the Indians as 
well. He would have the Great Spirit bless the rock, 
and the place, that it might be regarded as a pledge 
of eternal cessation from warfare. Sitting Bull and his 
people gave guttural assent in many "Hows" which 
sounded like Amens. Fire Cloud prayed that the 
Great Spirit would bless his red children and prosper 
their crops, withholding the hail that had desolated 
their fields the previous year. He turned to the In- 
dians and charged them that it was their duty to 
[38] 



LIFE WITH THE AGENCY INDIANS 

observe the laws of the Great Spirit, and those among 
them who had not clean hearts and hands should 
stand abashed and humiliated in the presence of the 
woman of the Standing Rock and the Great Spirit; 
he called on them to repent and devote themselves to 
leading clean and pure lives in the future. The appeal 
and the prayer were exceedingly impressive, and 
must have lasted an hour. At its conclusion, I per- 
formed the ceremony of unveiling by removing the 
blanket, and Fire Cloud added a few more painted 
symbols. 

To this day, Standing Rock remains fixed on the 
brow of the hill overlooking the Missouri, but it is 
not ^ impressive in its aspect as it was originally. 
On one occasion, when I was absent from the agency 
for some days, the employees concluded to surprise 
me by pulling down the rock pedestal upon which the 
Standing Rock was placed, and to show how the In- 
dians had progressed in the arts of civilization, they 
built for it a modern and less attractive structure of 
brick and mortar. But it stands there in all its essen- 
tiality as it was; and the spirit of peace invoked by 
Fire Cloud has settled down to abide over the land 
of the Teton Sioux to the west of the Missouri. 



CHAPTER IV 
BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

Notable Indian Crimes — The Slaying of the DeLormes — Ghastly 
Forms of Indian Mourning — How One Elk held his Father-in-Law. 

WHEN Brave Bear was hanged for his crime, 
his father, an old Indian of the Cut Head 
band of Sioux, came and sought me out 
at the agency. 

"Is my son dead?" asked the father. 

I was nonplussed, for it was not given me to carry 
on without feeling a conversation with a father about 
a son who was hanged the day before. But I had to 
make the best of it. The old man was very earnest 
and not at all angry — though he might have charged 
me with trying to rid the world of Brave Bear long 
before he was finally overtaken by the fate that was 
appointed him from the beginning. 

"He is dead," I answered. 

"Are you sure he is dead ?" persisted the old man. 

" I have a telegram saying that he was hanged yes- 
terday," said I. 

"It is well," rejoined the old man. "We are glad, 
his mother and myself, for he was a bad son." 

And this frightful declaration was as near eulogium 
as was ever pronounced on Brave Bear, a murderer 
and habitual criminal — which few of his tribe have 
been. They have been guilty of deeds of blood, but 
none of them were sneaking murderers for a little 
[40] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

gain, as Brave Bear was. Even The Only One — 
whose distinctive appellation might have pointed him 
out as a notable exception to the common run of his 
people, and whose hands were imbrued in blood 
spilled for gain — was a very decent sort compared 
to his companion in crime, Brave Bear. And he es- 
caped the ignominy of the death that was the portion 
of Brave Bear, dying in a desperate attempt to escape 
after the most sensational sort of capture, and being 
mourned in the most heart-breaking and barbarous 
way by his wife, one of the handsomest women of the 
Sioux nation — a people not wanting in women with 
physical attractions. 

Brave Bear was a sort of Indian dude. The Only 
One was quite the contrary — by no means the dis- 
tinguished individual that the hopes or fancy of his 
parents painted when they gave him a name that 
indicated how high a place he had in their esteem. 
Brave Bear always had plenty of clothes, cheap jew- 
elry, all the things that go to make the dandy at an 
Indian agency — or did go to make such a personage 
in the days when civilized garb was not so common 
as it is now. How he maintained his well-dressed 
habit I don't know, but suppose from his finish that 
it was not by honest means. These men were not 
much given to living close to the reservations, but 
roamed about the settlements a great deal. They 
might have lived by thievery. 

In any event they attained distinction in the field 
of high crime, when they found it to their purpose to 
commit a frightful butchery while engaged in robbing 
a settler named DeLorme, near Pembina, North 
Dakota, in 1873. They had entered a stable for the 
[41] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

purpose of stealing horses, and when two of the owners 
arrived on the scene, they shot and killed both, and a 
third man was mortally wounded. In the house were 
two women, and the Indians attacked them, shooting 
and wounding both of them. One of the women put 
up her hands to defend herself from a blow aimed at 
her head by Brave Bear, who carried a sword, and 
who struck her with it. The blow cut off one of her 
fingers, laid open her scalp, and stretched her appar- 
ently dead; but she recovered, as did the other wo- 
man. Brave Bear and The Only One rifled the place, 
stole several horses, and escaped to the Missouri 
River country, passing through Devils Lake reserva- 
tion, where I then was. As soon as I learned of the 
tragedy, I was convinced that Brave Bear and The 
Only One were of the party who had perpetrated the 
crime. They kept away from Devils Lake agency; 
but, having learned the facts of the murder from 
trustworthy Indians, I reported them to the proper 
authorities. 

I heard nothing of them for several years ; but one 
day in the winter of 1878 word was brought to me 
that they had arrived at Devils Lake and were living 
among the Cut Head Sioux at the west end of the 
reservation. Everything pointed to them as the au- 
thors of the butchery at Pembina. It was common 
knowledge among the Indians that they had com- 
mitted the crime, but the people were afraid to in- 
terfere with them. They were bad men, whose pre- 
sence among the Indians and impudent indifference 
to the authorities were demoralizing. Having con- 
vinced myself by inquiry that there was no doubt 
of their guilt, I made arrangements to capture them 
[42] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

in the early spring, before their ponies were in condi- 
tion for them to start out on their usual summer raids. 

The capture, to be made without bloodshed, must 
be effected by surprise, and it must not fail, for with 
the Indian, even more than with the white man, no- 
thing succeeds like success. It would be useless to 
attempt to take the men in their camp. They would 
assuredly fight, and that was not necessary. But they 
were very shy of coming to the agency. The only 
thing to do was to call a council of their band. They 
could not absent themselves from this without mak- 
ing themselves too conspicuous for safety, and once 
in the agency council-room we might handle them. 

At the time two troops of the Seventh Cavalry, 
Custer's old command, was in garrison at Fort Tot- 
ten. I conferred with Captain James M. Bell, now 
Brigadier General Bell, retired, who commanded the 
post, and arranged with him for the necessary troops 
when needed. 

Planting time was approaching, and I sent out a 
call for a council, to which all adult male members 
of the Cut Head band were invited, and required to 
attend; the ostensible object of the council being to 
ascertain the acreage of land each family intended 
to cultivate that year, so as to determine the quantity 
of seed needed. The council was to be held in the 
assembly hall, which was on the second floor of the 
main building of the agency group. In the rear was 
my office. The door to this was to be guarded by 
employees of the agency, with one of the more mus- 
cular at each of the two front windows, Thomas J. 
Reedy guarding one window and Frank Cavanaugh 
the other. It was arranged to have an armed squad 
[43] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

of dismounted soldiers paraded behind the garrison 
buildings, where they could not be seen from the 
agency, so that when Brave Bear and The Only One 
had entered the council-room the detail would, upon 
a prearranged signal, double-quick to the agency, 
file up the stairs, and secure the two Indians. 

The plan worked, after a great deal of waiting and 
more than an even chance of failure. Every other 
Cut Head Sioux then on the reservation was seated 
in the room before Brave Bear and The Only One 
put in an appearance. They seemed to feel that they 
were taking some sort of chance, and only the fact 
that their absence would make them conspicuous 
brought them in finally. Brave Bear came in first 
and was not disturbed. Then came The Only One, 
who cautiously ascended the stairway; and as soon 
as he had entered the hall James Stitsell, agency har- 
ness-maker, who was stationed outside for the pur- 
pose, signaled the garrison, and Lieutenant Herbert 
J. Slocum, U. S, A., now a major of cavalry, coming 
from the post with a detail of eight men, in double- 
quick time, closed in on the landing, filed up the stair- 
way rapidly, and before the soldiers had reached the 
head of the stairs leading into the room. The Only 
One knew that he was trapped. He bounded through 
the council-room and made for a door leading into 
the office, which was in the north end, with the evident 
intention of escaping through a window ; but his way 
was barred there by John E. Kennedy, agency clerk, 
and George H. Faribault, agency farmer, whereupon 
he rushed back toward where I was standing, near 
the front door, and being pointed out to Lieutenant 
Slocum, was soon in the hands of the soldiers. 
[44 ] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

The other Indians were tremendously excited, but 
I soon quieted them by announcing that no others 
were to be molested, and most of them knew that 
Brave Bear and The Only One were guilty of mur- 
der. There was no interference by the assembled In- 
dians, and the men were taken downstairs, The Only 
One going first between a couple of soldiers, and 
Brave Bear following. They passed out of the hall 
and down the stairway, which was on the outside of 
the south front of the building, and the foot of which 
was only a few feet from the southeast corner. Neither 
of the prisoners was bound, as it was not thought 
that any attempt at escape would be made. As they 
reached the corner of the building. The Only One 
made up his mind to take a desperate chance. It was 
only about twenty-five yards to the rear of the build- 
ing. Once around the corner he could afford to take 
a chance on being shot down, and there was the open 
country — which he had occupied in defiance of ar- 
rest for so long — before him. To refuse the chance 
meant incarceration, and almost certain death. The 
Only One did not stop long to think about the chances. 
He took them. With one bound he was out from 
between the files of soldiers. A few more bounds took 
him around the corner of the building, and he was 
off for the open country. The soldiers of his guard 
were astonished for a moment, then took after the 
fugitive, who had slipped out of his blanket and was 
running free. In the meantime Brave Bear was closed 
in on. The officer in charge. Lieutenant Slocum, 
drew his pistol and stepped up beside the man. The 
rest of the guard was ordered to the pursuit of 
the runaway. Slocum was not taking any chances 
[45 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

on Brave Bear, but he wanted to be in with the 
chase. 

"Here, Jack," he cried to J. E. Kennedy, agency 
clerk, "you take my pistol and hold this fellow, will 
you? while I go with my men." 

"Not me," said Kennedy; "I haven't lost any 
Indians." 

And Slocum had to hold his own prisoner. He 
landed him in the guardhouse. 

The Only One was then far on the road to freedom. 
He was giving an exhibition of sprinting that has not 
been seen on that prairie since. Anticipating that the 
soldiers would not hesitate to shoot at him, he ran, 
bounding high and jumping sideways every jump. 
Once off the agency grounds, he had a very good 
chance of getting away. There were sloughs to the 
west that would hide a pursued man, and beyond 
there was open ground that would subsist an Indian, 
especially if he had no moral scruples about other 
people's property; and there was comparative safety 
at the western agencies. The hostiles were still out in 
the Northwest, and Sitting Bull was not the man to 
ask a fugitive who came to him if he had blood on 
his hands, or to hold it against him if he knew that 
he had killed a white man or woman. He would be 
comparatively safe if he could even reach the camp 
of the Cut Heads at the west end of the Devils Lake 
reservation, for there were horses to be had there. 
And he was making a run for his life. 

The soldiers were rather anxious to get the man and 

needed no urging to open fire on him — and very bad 

practice they made of it, though the mark presented 

by The Only One was not so easy to hit as a target 

[46] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

might have been ; and they expended a great quantity 
of ammunition uselessly until the sergeant, one of 
those grizzled non-coms who were common enough 
on the frontier at that time, and are very scarce now, 
more 's the pity ! took a hand in the game. He dropped 
on one knee, took careful aim, and fired. The Only 
One dropped with a ball in his thigh. The soldiers 
ran up toward him, thinking he was hors de combat. 
In a moment The Only One made up his mind that 
his time had come, and that he might better die fight- 
ing than on the scaffold. He stood up, and the men 
saw that he had his knife in his hand. With fright- 
ful screams, part of agony from his wound and part 
the prompting of his enraged spirits, he ran at the 
men, his shattered thigh causing him to run lame 
at every other step. He was intent on getting at the 
soldiers and forcing them to kill him. The old ser- 
geant saw what the man intended, and he concluded 
that it was time to put him out of business, — that 
winging The Only One would do no good. Down he 
went on his knee again, and there was no wavering 
in his aim. His bullet found the heart of The Only 
One, and he dropped dead. 

The Cut Heads were greatly excited still, and the 
relatives of The Only One particularly so. One young 
brave, a brother of Brave Bear, thinking that the en- 
tire family might be apprehended on general prin- 
ciples, made off to the northwest while The Only 
One was being pursued. Some mounted soldiers from 
the post, thinking he was wanted too, started after 
him. The Indian made good headway, but was pretty 
well exhausted, and might have been captured pre- 
sently but that he ran into a slough. Burying himself 
[47] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

in the mud and weeds, he eluded his pursuers until 
it was found that he was not the man wanted, and 
they were called off. But it was many a day before 
he could be induced to come into the agency. 

This occurred on Saturday evening, and the fol- 
lowing Monday, being ration-day, all of the Indians 
came in for their rations. With them came the wife 
and the mother of The Only One. I have, as I said, 
seen Indians give frightful expression to their mourn- 
ing sentiments, but the grief shown by those two wo- 
men was awful in its manifestations. The wife of 
The Only One was a magnificently proportioned and 
handsome woman. Her beauty was something to be 
talked of. When I was called out by the wailing of 
the women they presented a shocking sight. It was 
customary for the widow of a recently deceased In- 
dian to disfigure herself, to demonstrate that her grief 
was boundless and that she had no regard for her 
appearance now that the husband was dead. They 
would nearly always cut off their hair without regard 
to uniformity as to length, and also usually scarify 
themselves. 

The wife of The Only One did not stop at the or- 
dinary manifestations of grief. She was a ghastly 
sight when I found her with her mother-in-law, the 
two crying out incoherent words of endearment and 
grief, relating the many good qualities of the dead 
man as a husband and son, for the taint of blood is 
not to the detriment of an Indian man's standing in 
his family, or was not in those days. The younger 
woman had torn nearly all the clothing from her 
body. She had cut off the hair from her entire head, 
and much of it she had torn out by the roots. Her 
[48] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

breasts were hacked and gashed with a knife. She 
had cut great gashes in the lower part of each leg, 
from the knees to the ankles ; she was streaming with 
blood and was an awful sight. The mother had gone 
almost as far in the expression of her woe, and had 
deliberately chopped off the little finger of her left 
hand, which among the Sioux at that time was a 
common expression of mourning for a relative killed. 
I don't think that grief could be made to wear a more 
horrid front than it did that day among the relatives 
of the dead murderer. This awful practice of maim- 
ing one's self as evidence of affection for the dead 
is one of the things that the Sioux have given up in 
a great measure under the restraining influences of 
civilization and Christianity; though the grief of the 
Indian is still clamorous, at least so far as the women 
are concerned. I have, on more than one occasion, 
found a family engaged in great lamentation, the 
women throwing ashes on their heads and wailing 
at the tops of their voices, and, upon inquiring, have 
been told that the mourning was for somebody who 
had been dead a year or two. Something had oc- 
curred, as a meeting of relatives who had been parted 
and who had not hitherto had opportunity to make 
common cause in mourning. 

But to return to Brave Bear : he was not permitted 
to escape from the military guardhouse. This was 
rather to my astonishment, for I had not much faith 
in the capacity of the guardians of that noteworthy 
military institution to hold an Indian prisoner. I 
had taken chances on Brave Bear and The Only One 
remaining on the reservation during the winter, ra- 
ther than commit them sooner to the custody of the 
[49] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

soldiers with the moral certainty of their escape be- 
fore spring. My experiences in the past had not 
inspired me with any great respect for the holding 
capacity of the post guardhouse. But it held Brave 
Bear fast enough until the civil authorities took 
charge of him. He was taken first to Bismarck and 
later to Fargo for trial, and the case against him was 
complete enough. When he was arraigned for trial, 
the two women who had survived the murderous at- 
tack on the DeLorme family fully identified him as 
one of the assailants. I was called as a witness, and 
it was expected that a speedy conviction would be 
had. But even in those days the Indian had come 
to an appreciation of the quibbles that make loop- 
holes in the white man's law. The case had not pro- 
ceeded beyond the first forenoon when the counsel 
appointed for the defense moved for the dismissal 
of the indictment on the ground that the court had 
no jurisdiction ; that the crime alleged to have been 
committed was stated to have been committed in 
Pembina County, where there was a duly organized 
tribunal for the adjudication of offenses, criminal 
and civil. The point was sustained by the court, the 
indictment dismissed, and Brave Bear sent up to 
Pembina for trial. He was put in the jail at Pembina, 
and one morning he was missing. With him went 
the horse of the jailer. Brave Bear declared after- 
wards that his medicine was good and had liberated 
him; that he had simply invoked the power of his 
medicine and floated up through the roof of the jail. 
As to the disappearance of the jailer's horse, why, 
that might have been a part of the medicine. 

With the speed with which the Indian can move 
[50] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

when he is put to it, Brave Bear made his way down 
through the territory to the Pine Ridge reservation. 
I believe he found things too hot for him there, or he 
longed for the fleshpots of the Cut Heads, his peo- 
ple, on the Standing Rock reservation. In any event 
he left Pine Ridge agency with a stolen horse, and 
started north. Somewhere above Fort Sully he met 
and murdered a man named Johnson. He stripped 
the victim of this second crime and put on the dead 
man's clothing. In the pocket of the vest he found 
$1700 in money. With the dead man's rifle in his 
hand, he started across the country. Johnson was 
a prominent Odd Fellow, and the members of that 
order offered a big reward for the capture of the mur- 
derer. The crime was charged to Brave Bear. The 
latter eluded pursuit and made his way to the far 
Northwest and over into Canada, where he found 
asylum with Sitting Bull. 

He remained with the old medicine man and ap- 
pears to have been of some importance in the band — 
now greatly decimated in numbers. In the summer 
of 1881 Sitting Bull, to the dismay of Brave Bear, 
came in and surrendered and was sent to Standing 
Rock agency, and Brave Bear had no choice but to 
go with him. That fall I took charge at Standing 
Rock, and Brave Bear was on the reservation until 
the day before my arrival. He knew me and was not 
in the humor to take chances on what would happen 
when I, located him. He had cached, or said he had, 
a considerable portion of the money he had robbed 
Johnson of, and he took a white man into his con- 
fidence so far as the hidden money was concerned, 
offering to divide the wealth if the white man would 
[51 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

put him across the Missouri River. The deal was 
made, but Brave Bear had lingered too long. Other 
men on the reservation had identified him, and they 
also knew of the reward that had been offered for his 
capture. He was taken across the river by his white 
friend and soon after held up by a party of four men 
who were on the lookout for him, and Brave Bear was 
made a captive for the last time. He was sent to 
Yankton, then the capital of Dakota Territory, and 
tried for the murder of Johnson. There was no doubt 
of his guilt. He was condemned and hanged. 

Going back to the insecurity of that prison at the 
post, so far as providing for the restraint of an Indian 
was concerned, I am reminded of the affair of One 
Elk, who killed his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, 
and his sister-in-law, in an access of zeal for the gov- 
ernment, laying his relatives by marriage on the altar 
of good government with a singleness of purpose and 
disregard to his personal sentiments that remind one 
of the patriot who was willing that all his wife's rela- 
tives should enlist for the war. One Elk was incar- 
cerated in the military guardhouse as a consequence 
of his crimes, and one night walked out of that strong- 
hold, in defiance of all military ordinance, and, com- 
ing over to my quarters, informed me that he had no 
possible objection to confinement, but that he would 
not stay in the soldiers' jail : if I would provide him 
quarters in the agency guardhouse, he would will- 
ingly remain there. 

It was in the spring of 1881 that One Elk made 
sacrifice of his wife's family in carrying out what he 
conceived to be the will of the government as repre- 
sented by the agent. About that time I had great 
[52] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

difficulty in handling the nomadic Indians. When the 
agency was established at Fort Totten, it was for the 
purpose of giving a reservation to the wandering peo- 
ple who were roaming the prairies of northern Da- 
kota, of bringing them under the influence of the gov- 
ernment and giving them a permanent habitation. 
It was my business to gather them in and enroll them 
as belonging to the agency, and to keep them there. 
But they conceived the idea that the agency was a 
ration station — at least a good many of them did. 
They would drop in, stop for a time, then disappear, 
only to appear at some other agency and go through 
the same performance. They would start out from 
Fort Peck or one of the southwestern reservations, 
swing around to Devils Lake, find some of their rela- 
tives there, conclude that was the only place to live, 
and so declare themselves. When they had rested 
and were through with their visiting, they would 
pack up and disappear. 

Something had to be done to curb their habits in 
this direction. So it happened that in the spring of 
that year I called a council, and told the people that 
if they wanted to live on the reservation, to have 
houses and farms like the whites, they must remain 
where they were, and I would make some provision 
for getting them seeds and other necessaries. But 
they must on no account leave the reservation. This 
argument was necessary, particularly in the case of 
the Cut Heads. The Sisseton and Wahpeton were 
willing enough to remain, though they visited a good 
deal with their relatives on the Lake Traverse reser- 
vation, a distance of about two hundred and fifty 
miles. 

[53] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

^ The Cut Heads, being a sub-band of the Yank- 
tonai, had relatives at Fort Peck, Standing Rock, and 
Crow Creek, and in other parts of the Great Sioux 
reservation, and it was very difficult to hold them at 
an agency when they might roam almost without 
limit through a country that was still rich in game, 
and visit their people at great distances. Their band 
was recruited at Devils Lake from parties that had 
come in from other reservations to the west. Among 
these wanderers was the family of Two Bulls, the 
father-in-law of One Elk. The old man was inoffen- 
sive but confirmed in his nomadic habits. He did not 
propose to remain on the reservation, but intended 
to betake himself and his household to the west — 
he had come from Standing Rock the previous fall. 
He was present at the council when I announced that 
no more wandering about would be permitted, and 
that the Cut Heads must content themselves on the 
reservation. I indicated that any attempt to leave 
without permission would result in the people being 
brought back and punished in some sort. One Elk 
gave enthusiastic assent to the proposition that he 
was a Devils Lake Indian, and announced that he 
was ready to spend the rest of his days there. 

I don't know if there was a family council, but there 
probably was. In any event old Two Bulls made up 
his mind that it was time for him to make his flitting. 
Unfortunately for him his son-in-law. One Elk, made 
up his mind that it was his duty to see to it that the 
old man did not get away. But the old fellow did. 
He moved by degrees, edging his camp along toward 
the west end of the reservation, and eventually making 
off through the broken country to the west. He had 
[54] 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

with him his entire family of four daughters, one a 
widow, one the wife of One Elk, the others young 
women, and two small sons. It appears that One Elk 
joined him in the flitting, for a purpose. The latter 
had a firm conviction that he was commissioned to 
keep the family into which he had married up to the 
standard in the matter of obedience to the agent. He 
was a simple-minded fellow, and it may be that he 
thought this removal in open defiance of orders was 
a high crime and might be visited vicariously upon 
himself. From time immemorial the Indian's sins 
were atoned for by his whole family. Or it may be 
that he thought to win favor with the authorities by 
showing that he would hesitate at nothing to compel 
obedience to the mandates of the agent. He, it ap- 
peared, had a great desire to become an agency police- 
man. And to show his capacity and zeal he took to 
the trail with Two Bulls. 

For about a hundred miles he traveled with his 
father-in-law and the family ; and when the old man 
and the outfit camped on the Mouse River, One Elk 
came to the conclusion that the outfit was going to the 
Fort Peck agency, Montana, and that it was his duty 
to stop the moving. He evidently thought that the 
safe thing to do would be to kill the old man, his wife, 
and the eldest daughter of Two Bulls. With this latter 
woman he was not on good terms. The three slept 
in one tepee, and One Elk and wife with the other 
members of the family occupied another. Early in 
the morning he took an axe and went into the tepee 
of Two Bulls. The eldest daughter, a widow, was 
doomed to die first, for of her One Elk was afraid. If 
he attacked the old man and she survived, there would 
f 55 1 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

be a fight. The three people lay sleeping. With one 
blow of the axe One Elk clove the skull of his sister- 
in-law and she died in her sleep; then he struck his 
father-in-law and there was no awakening in this 
world for Two Bulls. Another blow killed the mother- 
in-law; and One Elk came out, his bloody work fin- 
ished, and ordered his wife and the surviving daugh- 
ters of Two Bulls to cook breakfast. The women were 
frightened, but possessing the stolidity of Indian 
women, reasoned that what had been done could not 
be mended. The evening before, Two Bulls had been 
hunting and had killed some ducks. These were 
cooked and eaten within a few feet of the tepee in 
which lay the bodies of the hunter and his women- 
kind. Without more ado One Elk told the women 
and boys to pack up and follow him. He took the 
trail to Devils Lake, leaving Two Bulls and the 
women in the tepee. 

The morning after the arrival of One Elk at Devils 
Lake the captain of police came and told me that 
One Elk had told of the murders. I thought the fel- 
low had been boasting idly, as some Indians were 
prone to brag of having done inconceivable things. 
But the story was repeated, and I sent for One Elk. 
He did not hesitate telling me the story in detail, and 
said that he expected to be praised for his zeal. 

"I made myself a policeman," he said. "You told 
Two Bulls not to leave the reservation. He left in 
spite of your policeman, and I thought I would do the 
Great Father a good turn and show him that the 
heart of One Elk was right. The old man would 
not come back, and I killed him." 

I believe the fellow was disappointed because I did 
[56] 



I 



BRAVE BEAR AND THE ONLY ONE 

not at once show my appreciation of his zeal by put- 
ting him on the police force. Still I did not credit the 
awful story he told. He was so unmoved that I thought 
he must be insane or lying. He was neither one nor 
the other. I, however, sent Two Bulls' son. Brown 
Elk, and nephew, Little Bull, out to where One Elk 
said the camp stood, and there they found the bodies. 
The tepee had blown down but the bodies were there, 
bearing the wounds the slayer had described. One 
Elk had made no attempt to leave the reservation, 
and he was arrested when the story was found to be 
true. 

In those days there was no telegraphic communica- 
tion between the agency and the outside world, and it 
took two days to get a letter to the nearest telegraph 
station. The civil authorities were too busy to respond 
very promptly in the matter of taking charge of an 
Indian prisoner, even though he was charged with a 
triple murder. Consequently One Elk lay for some 
time in the military guardhouse. The agency jail 
was not very secure, but the military guardhouse was 
secure enough if properly watched. I knew by ex- 
perience that it was not guarded closely enough to 
hold an Indian who wanted to get out, but One Elk 
did not appear to want to get his liberty. In this sur- 
mise I was wrong ; for one night, after I had retired, 
I was awakened by a rapping at my door ; I inquired 
who it was. 

"One Elk," was the response. 

I looked out and it was the murderer sure enough. 

**I don't like the soldiers' guardhouse," he said; 
"put me in your guardhouse and I will stay, but a 
Sioux cannot remain a prisoner to the blue-coats." 
[57] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

I detained him and turned him over to Captain 
Mathey, Seventh Cavalry, the officer of the day. He 
was shackled and confined again, but he made a file 
of a case-knife, filed off his shackles, and crawled out 
through a little window just after sundown, arousing 
the garrison with the Indian whoop as he jumped to 
the ground. He was pursued and fired upon fey the 
guard, but by swift running and dodging about he 
escaped the bullets that were sent after him. He got 
away safely, and was not heard of for more than a 
year. Then a report came down from Turtle Moun- 
tain that he had been living with the fugitive Sioux 
in Manitoba, Canada. One day he got into an alter- 
cation with an Indian named Red Boy, and when the 
affair was over One Elk lay dead. 



CHAPTER V 
WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

Romance and Magic enter into the Spirit of the Red Man's Wooing 
when he goes to take a Wife — Some Tragedies of the Reservation — 
Billy Squash and the Virgin Feast. 

THE Indian in love is about as far removed from 
the ordinary white man's conception of an In- 
dian lover as he is from the wooer Longfellow 
created in Hiawatha. He is very earnest, very ardent, 
not too secretive, and superstitious to a degree that is 
not to be conceived even by the young woman who 
expects to see the face of her sweetheart in the dark- 
ened mirror at Hallowe'en. And when the Indian 
lover becomes jealous in earnest, a tragedy is likely 
to be very near at hand. In all my experience of the 
Sioux, I have heard of few crimes involving the spill- 
ing of blood behind which there was not either super- 
stition or a love-affair ; and very generally both were 
at the bottom of the crime. And suicide for love — 
an expedient to which it would hardly be expected 
by those who are unacquainted with Indian charac- 
ter that my friend the Indian would resort — is not 
rare. 

And let me here and now say that the stoicism of 
which so much is heard is no part of the Indian char- 
acter. What has been described as stoicism, the trait 
that the Fenimore Coopers and other Indian roman- 
cers have been so fond of exploiting, is simply shyness 
[59] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

or secretiveness. The Indian, as I have found him, 
and I have known the people under nearly all possible 
circumstances, is extremely shy with strangers, and 
this shyness takes the form of constitutional secretive- 
ness in strenuous moments. The Indian child who 
appears savagely reticent to a stranger is very likely 
the most joyous romp with people he knows, be they 
white or red. He is shy as a wild thing is shy. The 
Indian man who suffers torture without making a 
sign is not indifferent to pain, nor especially desirous 
that he shall be regarded as indifferent. He is simply 
indulging his exaggerated tendency to secretiveness. 
An Indian in a crowd of whites will probably be wild 
with excitement over the strange things he sees, but he 
has too much regard for his own dignity to expose his 
sentiments. Let him understand he is among friends, 
or free from personal scrutiny, and he is as joyously 
exuberant as though he had never possessed either 
dignity or secretiveness. I think that the most hilari- 
ous lot of men I ever saw was a crowd of Sioux, many 
of whom had been on the war-path against the whites, 
and all of whom regarded themselves as men of im- 
portance among their people, — whom I took to see 
a musical comedy in Washington and who were 
treated to the sight of a comic opera. They forgot the 
place, the people, and their strange surroundings, and 
whooped for very joy. At home, among his friends, 
the Indian takes his pleasures with quite an abandon 
of mirth. His reserve, shyness, timidity, or whatever 
it is, but certainly not stoicism, shows itself only when 
he has a purpose to serve, and he throws his dignity 
to the winds when his risibles are touched. I have 
known, I may say intimately, the big men of the 
[60] 



I 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

Sioux nation, and I knew very few who did not display 
real feeling for causes that would not touch the white 
man, — which brings me back to a case in point. 

Chief Gall, whom I regarded as one of the biggest 
men of his nation, a warrior and councilor of high 
standing, and one to be reckoned with as the peer of 
Red Cloud and Spotted Tail among the great men 
of the Teton Sioux, lived all his days after he left the 
war-path on the Standing Rock reservation, and was 
my friend. I consulted with him on matters affecting 
the welfare of his people, and he came to me frankly 
with personal affairs that were sometimes staggering 
in their intimacy. 

After he had passed his prime Gall fell in love. 
He was at that time the finest-looking Indian I had 
ever seen, and but a very few years previous, he need 
have asked no man's advice as to what he should do 
if he wanted a woman for a wife ; and in those days 
it would have made no particular difference if he had 
happened to be encumbered with one or more wives 
at the time. One morning in the year 1885, — Gall 
had ceased to be a hostile and buried the hatchet 
finally in 1881, — he came to the office at the agency 
and asked for a private interview. He was a fine, big 
man, showing in his attitude the pride he had in his 
chieftaincy and his prowess as a warrior. The finest 
typical picture of an Indian extant is a photograph 
of Gall taken about this time. He was very mysterious 
in his actions on this particular morning, which was 
the more surprising, in that he was habitually open 
and even impressive in his carelessness of surround- 
ings. He looked about to see that we were alone and 
then said : — 

[61] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

"Father, I have come to have a talk." (The Sioux 
invariably address their agent as father.) 

I was ready to hear him, and told him so. He con- 
tinued : — 

" When you came here [some four years previously] 
we agreed, you and I, that I should come and talk 
straight when I wanted advice and that we were to 
be friends." 

"How," said I; "How" meaning good, right, well- 
done, or anything you like in the way of approbation, 
in addition to its usual use as a term of greeting and 
farewell. 

And "How," rejoined the chief, then he continued : 
"I have been your friend; you are my friend. I told 
you that I would give up the customs of my people 
and live as the white men do, as nearly as I could. 
Have I done that .^" 

I assured him that I was perfectly content, and that 
he had been all I could ask. And he went on : — 

"Father, I have changed my habits; I follow the 
footsteps of the white man, for I know he is wiser than 
I am and that the Indian way is no longer the way to 
go. But, my friend, I cannot change my heart. We 
may catch a bird but we cannot make it change its 
tune. My heart is good, but it is sad, for I am in love." 

Gall blushed. Men who know the Indian intimately 
will understand that this is literally true, — that this 
big warrior, who had been ruthless in his warfare and 
who had lived for forty years and more in the open, 
whose red skin was browned by the sun, who had 
painted his face every winter to keep the skin from 
chapping and painted it again in the summer to keep 
it from burning, blushed like a white-skinned girl. 
[62] 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

But he looked me straight in the eye. There was 
reason for his blushing, in the shape of an elderly 
dame who sat at home waiting for her lord to return 
from the agency, and Gall knew that I was thinking 
of her. 

"I know it is not right," continued the chief, "for 
I have said I will be as the white man, and what Pizi 
[Gall] says, he will do. But I have thought much about 
this. I have a wife. If I had not given my word to 
you, I might take another. The woman I love lives 
in the lodge of another, but I know she loves me and 
would come to me. You are my friend and I have 
given you my word. Will you give me back my word ? 
My heart is very sad." 

I knew the man and his kind so well that I did 
not see the humor of the situation and was never so 
little inclined to laugh in my life. I know now that 
if I had laughed the history of the Sioux on the Stand- 
ing Rock reservation might have been written very 
differently, for Gall was as proud and sensitive as he 
was ingenuous in this confession. I made him a 
speech, forgetting the humor of the thing, and talked 
as I knew the man who led the Indian soldiers at 
the battle of the Little Big Horn would expect to be 
talked to. I told him that one of the important things 
in the turning of the Indian into a white man was 
the taking of a single wife; how the white man had 
become great by making marriage a solemn thing 
to which only two people could become parties. I 
showed him how necessary it was that the big men 
of his tribe should accept this custom of the white 
man in order that the others might follow their ex- 
ample ; how it was needful that men who expected to 
[63] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

accomplish great things must make sacrifices, and 
how these sacrifices would be appreciated by the 
Great Father. There was no use appealing to his 
religious sensibilities, for Gall held to the Indian 
code and there was nothing in that to prevent poly- 
gamy. And I held him firmly to his promise that he 
would continue to be the best man on the reservation. 
I could see no way, I told him, whereby I could do 
anything for him. 

Gall made me a speech. He told me that he knew 
it was in the power of the agent to divorce people. 
I pointed out to him that this was only done where 
a man had more than one wife, and wanted to put all 
but one away and make other provision for them. 
He said his wife was old and he wanted but one — 
the one he did n't have. I had to refuse to interfere, 
flatly but diplomatically, and made him understand 
that I wanted him for a friend but he must abide by 
the white man's rule. 

He thought for a moment, then said : — 

" I have promised to go the white man's way and 
I stand by my word, but I might not have promised 
if I thought my heart would sing again at the coming 
of a woman. I will pay the price of being as white 
men are." 

The big fellow shook hands and went out. I heard 
no more of Gall's love-affair. 

Polygamy amongst the Indians never had any sort 
of religious sanction. It was tolerated on the ground 
that man should be regarded as the master of his own 
household, and that it could make no difference to 
the community how many wives he had. It made 
some difference to the individual, however, and most 
[64] 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

marriao;es were made throuojh selection. Custom 
made the Sioux a polygamist. The Sioux in his wild 
state had an option on the whole family in case there 
was no brother or male cousin and more than one 
maiden in the household containing the object of his 
affections, the sisters becoming subject to his disposal ; 
under tribal law, if he married the eldest one he was 
privileged to wed them all or dispose of them in mar- 
riage as they reached marriageable age. But notwith- 
standing the inferior position of the woman in the 
tribe, it was generally understood that the wife by 
choice — who very nearly always got the man of her 
choice — managed to take care of her own, and the 
sisters generally made shift to marry other men with- 
out disturbing the household. The older men, who 
took additional wives as they increased in years and 
wealth, clung to the institution and their polygamous 
households, and it was the demoralizing effect they 
exercised in the community that gave the administra- 
tion most trouble in the civilizing processes. 

When the hostiles came in and were located at 
Standing Rock, polygamous families were numerous. 
Many of the chiefs and other men of importance had 
plural wives. Sitting Bull had two wives at the end, 
though the roll of his list of wives would undoubtedly 
have been largely increased had any one ever gone to 
the trouble of looking them up. He was not a nice 
character. Sitting Bull ; he took what looked good to 
him, whether it was a woman or property of other 
sort, and he was not in any sense typical of his people. 
I never heard that he had a love-affair, and the meas- 
ure of the man was shown when Bishop Marty tried 
to induce him to put away one of his wives. He went 

[65] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

to see the Bishop, who was visiting the missions. The 
Bishop pointed out to him the evil of his ways, and 
the bad influence he exerted among the people, finally 
asking him if he would not put away one of his wives. 
Sitting Bull was crafty. 

"You think that I should put away one wife and 
that would be good ?" he asked. 

" It would, and the woman would be taken care of. 
You should keep only your first wife." 

" But I cannot put one away ; I like them both and 
would not like to treat them differently." 

The Bishop admitted that it might be hard, but one 
should be put away, the second wife. 

" But I could put them both away without injuring 
either one," said Sitting Bull. 

"You could do that," was the reply of the good 
man, thinking he was making some headway. 

"The black gown is my friend," rejoined Sitting 
Bull, " and I will do this for him ; I will put away both 
my wives, and the black gown will get me a white wife." 

The Bishop gave him up as incorrigible, and the old 
chief retained both his wives to the end. 

Polygamy is giving way to missionary teachings 
and the efforts of the Indian Department to discour- 
age it. I suppose that Standing Rock is as good an 
example of the reservations still held by the Indians 
in common as there is in the country. In 1881 there 
were upwards of two hundred polygamous families 
on that reservation, and it now contains only three. 
The heads of the households are all old men, and with 
their passing the institution will not have to be reck- 
oned with. Mad Bear has two wives. Red Fish has 
two, and His Thunder Shield the same number. 
[ 66 ] 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

In the attempt to do away with polygamy at Stand- 
ing Rock more than one tragedy was enacted, and I am 
reminded now of the affair of Matozee (Yellow Bear), 
the son of Running Walk, the latter being a man of 
some importance at the time and a friend of mine. 

In early times, when the Sioux were still largely 
pagan and the agency represented all the authority 
of any sort that they could see outside of their tribal 
rules, the agent was the arbiter of their destinies in 
many directions. He licensed them to marry and 
married them, in preference to permitting them to 
marry without any sort of ceremony that might be 
regarded as formal and binding. So numerous were 
these marriages performed by me, in the effort to 
bring the hostiles to a sense of the importance of gov- 
ernment, that a facetious army officer at Fort Yates, 
in speaking with some eastern tourists of the religious 
denominations on the reservation, said that there 
were Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and 
McLaughlinites. Justice was necessarily administered 
by the Agent, and sharp correction was sometimes 
given those who could not be restrained by the tribal 
rules. The Indian justiciary system, with its invalu- 
able police adjunct, was just then coming into existence. 

It was in my capacity as administrator of justice 
that there was brought before me one day in the 
spring of 1882 the Indian Matozee. He was charged 
with having carried off against her will a young 
woman whom he had long pursued. The man was 
already married. The woman had escaped from him, 
but he had followed her and taken her again to his 
tepee. There was no doubt about the fellow's guilt, 
and he could not be induced to promise to behave 
[67] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

himself. I put him in the guardhouse and kept him 
there. I have forgotten how long he was confined, 
but perhaps for ten or fifteen days. He remained sul- 
len throughout his imprisonment, and made no pro- 
mise when he was sent away and told to leave the 
woman alone or he would be returned to prison. To 
some of the people he talked and said he loved the 
woman and could not live without her. He was a 
savage, pure and simple, regarding his own right. 
He was quite capable of taking the woman, and he 
declined to admit the right of anybody to interfere 
except in a fight, and he was quite willing for that. 
His passion had made him mad. He went again to 
the place where the woman lived, and tried to take 
her. He was brought to the agency and given another 
fifteen-day sentence. When he was turned loose, his 
spirit was broken but he was not cured. He sat in his 
tepee and brooded for a day. One morning he rode 
to the Agent's residence, occupied by myself and 
family. It was very early, and Mrs. McLaughlin was 
alone outside. The man had a gun and his manner 
was threatening enough. My wife, speaking the 
Sioux language fluently, had always had great influ- 
ence with the people, and she talked with Yellow 
Bear and told him the error of his way and the bad 
effect it must have on himself. She kept him in such 
a position that he had no chance to use his rifle while 
she was not looking. Somebody else came out of the 
house, and he dashed away, muttering and gesticu- 
lating. The sound of a gunshot coming from his tepee 
shortly after attracted the attention of the people ; he 
had shot himself mortally and died within a few hours. 
But the Sioux lover is much more inclined to the 
[68] 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

killing of somebody else than to suicide. The suicide 
solution of a love-problem has been applied but in- 
frequently, for the Indian is restrained from taking 
his own life by his superstitions. He fears to face the 
shades with a self-inflicted death wound. I have known 
of many Indian women killing themselves for love, 
and of eight cases of self-destruction among men. 
The women hang or drown themselves, the men using 
deadly weapons. 

There was the case of Horned Dog ; he became in- 
fatuated with a grass widow, young and handsome; 
she had been married at Devils Lake, but had left 
her husband and was free. With her uncle. Cow 
Head, she had been on a visit to relatives on the 
Standing Rock reservation all winter. Horned Dog, 
who was already married, saw her frequently at 
dances and feasts during the winter, and fell madly 
in love with her. She was not at all averse to mar- 
riage, but she had no idea of becoming a plural wife, 
and she showed Horned Dog the door of her uncle's 
tepee. The lover would not be dismissed. He fol- 
lowed her everywhere, and Cow Head proceeded to 
take her off the reservation in the early spring. He 
took his own family and the young woman and 
crossed the Missouri on his return trip to Devils Lake. 
Their first camp was made a mile or so north of the 
crossing, near the agency. That night Horned Dog 
arrived at the camp and refused to leave. He could 
not be forced out, under the laws of Indian hospital- 
ity. The next morning early he shot twice at the 
woman, one bullet striking her in the thigh and an- 
other in the left forearm. Thinking he had killed the 
widow, Horned Dog turned his gun on himself, and 
[69] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

fell lifeless beside her. She was brought to the agency 
and her arm amputated — which did not prevent her 
from getting another husband during the summer. 

Romancers have written much of the poetry of the 
Indian lover, and there is, no doubt, much of poeti- 
cal feeling in the sentiments expressed by the young 
Indian who would a- wooing go, — or was in the 
days when the Indian nature had freeness of expres- 
sion ; but my experience and knowledge of the Indian 
leads me to believe that he is inclined to be fierce 
rather than sentimental in his outward manifesta- 
tions of the entertainment of the gentle passion. 
Some of the great chiefs I have known had really 
fine characters marred by the fierceness of their pas- 
sions. There, for instance, was Spotted Tail, who 
made his entrance into the public life of his people 
by means of a bloody encounter with a rival for the 
possession of a girl of their tribe, and who was killed 
on account of a similar affair. 

Spotted Tail was a Brule Sioux, and a great leader 
in spite of the fact that he was rather inclined to treat 
diplomatically with the whites than to take the war- 
path. He never led his band into battle after the 
surrender of Ash Hollow in the sixties, and he pro- 
moted the treaty for the opening of the Bozeman 
route into Montana, even after his people had prac- 
tically all deserted him to follow the fortunes of Red 
Cloud. That Red Cloud was the bigger man and the 
greater chief there is no doubt, for he came to be re- 
garded with superstitious awe by his people, who 
thought he must be possessed of some powerful 
medicine, so successful was he on the war-path. 
[70] 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

Spotted Tail was not an hereditary chief, but came 
into leadership as a young man. He had been out with 
his people, but had not particularly distinguished him- 
self up to the age of twenty. He was a fine-looking 
young fellow, and he remained a fine-looking man 
all his life. It was while his people were living in the 
Platte River country, a considerable distance south- 
west of the place of his death on the Rosebud reser- 
vation, that he fell in love with Appearing Day, who 
is described by the old people of her band as possess- 
ing all the beauty and virtues that a woman of the 
Sioux can possess. Divinely tall, if not divinely fair, 
she was sought by many suitors, but had repulsed 
them all and remained in the tepee of her father, 
a chief of standing, long beyond the age at which a 
maiden of the Sioux generally marries. She had 
grown up beside Spotted Tail ; it was known that they 
were in love, and the youth took advantage of every 
opportunity to seek the favor of her father. This 
favor he did not possess, the father having so loved 
his daughter that he refused to give her in marriage 
to many wealthy and desirable suitors. 

Among the foremost of these suitors, and the one 
most persistent in his suit, was Running Bear, a chief 
who had won his title to consideration on the battle- 
field and in the council-lodge. He had two wives 
already, but that was no handicap in his wooing, for 
he was rich in horses, was in the prime of life, and was 
apparently destined to sit among the great ones of his 
people. And Spotted Tail knew that Running Bear 
was favored by the father of Appearing Day, and he 
feared that the girl might be given to the elder man, 
though she had sworn to her lover that she would die 
[71] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

or elope with him sooner than follow Running Bear 
to his lodge. The elder man knew by instinct that 
Spotted Tail alone stood between him and the realiz- 
ation of his hopes, and he hated the young man, who, 
having but just become a soldier, dared to aspire to 
the hand of the woman loved by a chief. 

Affairs had approached a crisis when, one day in 
the spring, the rivals met outside the village on the 
North Platte. Running Bear told the young man that 
he must give over his pretensions, that unless he 
would leave the girl alone and bind himself to do so 
by a promise on the spot, he might prepare to die. 
History has not preserved the reply of Sintegleska 
(Spotted Tail), but it is probable that he made a 
speech, for he was always the diplomat. It is known 
that almost instantly the two had drawn their knives 
and were locked in each other's arms in a death- 
struggle. When the people reached the scene of the 
battle they were clasped together, but the knife of 
Spotted Tail was buried in the heart of his rival and 
the young man himself hacked very nearly to death. 
Appearing Day, putting aside her maiden reserve, 
bound up the wounds of her lover and nursed him 
back to life. To win such a fight, and with such an 
opponent, was quite enough to establish Spotted Tail 
high in the esteem of his people, and there was no 
father in the Sioux nation who would then have re- 
fused him the hand of his daughter. The lovers were 
married, and during Appearing Day's life they were 
devotedly attached to each other, so that the story 
of this happily mated couple is still remembered by 
the older people of the band. 

It may have been to show that after her death he 
[72] 




SPOTTED TAIL 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

had no heart to give any woman, or because he had 
broadened in his affections, but the fact remains that 
one of the first things Spotted Tail did when he was 
elected to the chieftainship of his band was to marry 
two women, neither of whom bore any resemblance 
to the beautiful Appearing Day, being neither well- 
favored nor remarkable for their attributes of mind ; 
but he lived with them through a long and, from the 
Indian point of view, more or less successful career. 
He had avoided the blunders of Red Cloud, and had 
treated with the whites or sat down at the agency 
while the people went on the war-path. But he was 
a strong man and a natural leader, which brought to 
him such a large following that the Spotted Tail 
agency — now known as the Rosebud — became 
quite celebrated. He was living there and drawing 
to what might have been the peaceful close of a life 
that had brought him some honors and the consider- 
ation of the government, when he fell in love again. 
This time, with an old man's passion, he fixed his 
favor on a married woman, the wife of a cripple 
named Medicine Bear. The woman appears to have 
been passive in the matter, though not averse to 
changing her place in the lodge of her husband for 
that of the favorite wife of a great chief. Whether by 
prearrangement or not, Spotted Tail seized the woman 
and bore her off. He made some sort of an attempt 
to mollify the husband by offering him compensation 
for the wife he had lost, and the matter might have 
been arranged, but that one Crow Dog, a friend of 
the abused husband, made it a blood feud. He met 
Spotted Tail riding in a wagon, on August 5, 1881, 
and shot the chief dead. 

[73] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

The event which put a period to the romantic ad- 
ventures of Spotted Tail was fraught with important 
consequences, for it resulted in establishing the status 
of the Indian before the law. Crow Dog went into 
hiding until his friends had made compensation to 
the family of Spotted Tail for his murder. The ad- 
justment was made according to tribal custom, and 
the affair was settled so far as the Indians were con- 
cerned ; but Spotted Tail was a man of too much im- 
portance for the authorities to permit his assassin to 
go unpunished. Crow Dog was arrested and brought 
to trial, was convicted, and the case appealed. The 
contention was made on behalf of Crow Dog that, he 
being an Indian and not a citizen of the United States, 
the court had no jurisdiction ; that having been dealt 
with according to the custom of his tribe for the 
offense, he was not amenable to prosecution by fed- 
eral or other courts. The United States Supreme 
Court, to which the case was carried, took this view 
of the case and discharged the accused man. The 
decision resulted in the enactment of legislation which 
brought all Indians under the laws of the states or 
territories in which they reside, making them amen- 
able under the laws thereof for felonious crimes not 
punishable by the federal code. 

These incidents recalled do not argue much for 
the moral restraint of the Indian, and it is apparent 
that time has had but little chastening injfluence on 
him as regards his views of connubial life ; but I must 
add, in justification of the people, that they hold 
nothing more sacred than the purity of a maiden. 
Severe punishment and ostracism are meted out to 
[74] 



WHEN CUPID CAMPS WITH THE SIOUX 

the man who disparages a woman, and I remember 
witnessing on more than one occasion a "virgin 
feast" proving the chastity of a maiden. 

While I was agent at Devils Lake agency such a 
feast was held, and the discomfiture of the traducer 
was complete. 

One Wamnuha (Billy Squash), a fine-looking 
young Indian who looked upon himself as a sort of 
lady-killer, had traduced the character of Lucy Pro- 
vincial ; the girl was young, handsome, popular, and 
well-behaved, but her good conduct had not saved 
her from Billy's tongue. She had rejected the fellow 
and he was piqued. The stories he told about her 
came to her ears, and she took prompt measures to 
justify herself, according to the custom of her people. 
She made a virgin feast. 

All the maidens of her acquaintance were invited, 
and the affair was set for ration day and held on the 
most prominent spot of the agency grounds, in front 
of the commissary building. Word was sent all over 
the reservation and there was a great gathering of 
the people. The girls engaged in the feast numbered 
eight or ten, and they were seated in a circle about 
a small oblong stone, the sacred stone used in all 
medicine feasts and called literally "The Grand- 
father." Beside this sacred stone Lucy stuck a knife 
into the ground. A dish of food was passed to each 
of the girls by the giver of the feast, and the people, 
some hundreds of them, stood about in a larger circle, 
Billy well to the front, and receiving a great deal of 
attention in the form of jibing from the other young 
men. He kept his blanket well about his ears, but 
gave no evidence of any intention of weakening. 
[75] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

The girls having finished eating, Lucy stood up 
and announced that she had been talked about, that 
the talk was lies, and that if any man within the sound 
of her voice could say anything detrimental to her, 
he should then and there announce it publicly, and 
should his accusation be substantiated, she would 
either go with him (as was the custom in such in- 
stances) or be as an outcast among her people. 

Billy laughed uneasily, and his friends tried to push 
him into the circle. Lucy repeated her defiance and 
the other girls offered a similar challenge. Billy, 
coerced by his fellows, finally mustered enough cour- 
age to step forward and reach out his hand to Lucy. 
The girl plucked the knife out of the ground, seized 
Billy by the blanket, and tried to drag him into the 
circle of maidens. The fellow resisted, and she flour- 
ished the knife and insisted that he should tell his 
story, her eyes flashing and her tongue going at a rate 
that might have discomfited a bolder man than Billy 
Squash. The fellow resisted as the girl dragged him 
forward to make his accusation, and at last slipped 
out of his blanket, leaving it in the hands of the en- 
raged girl, and raced across the prairie. Lucy ran 
after him, but he got away. The girl was vindicated 
and Billy Squash was thereafter treated with con- 
tempt by the people who had witnessed the cere- 
mony. 



CHAPTER VI 
HOW CROW KING STOPPED THE MEDICINE MEN 

How the Sioux Chief rebuked the Hunkpapa Fakirs and contributed 
to the Downfall of a Great Indian Institution. 

A GRAY shadow lay on the face of Crow King, 
and in the silence of the night, when no sound 
broke the stillness but the dim echoing howl 
of the coyote far up the valley of the Yellowstone, 
the chief lay in his tepee and saw the beckoning fingers 
of the ghosts inviting him to join his fathers in the 
spirit land. And Crow King, having some doubts 
about his standing among the shades and valuing 
properly his earthly place as a chief of the Hunkpapas 
and a man of much weight in the councils of the Sioux, 
was not inclined to heed the beckoning fingers and the 
invitation of the shadowy faces he turned away from. 
" Crow King is not a woman, to die of an ache in his 
lodge," said the chief to his wife, who tended him with 
the tenderness of a loving woman, for all her face 
was swarthy between the two braids of her raven hair 
and her fingers hard from the toil of the camp. 

For was it not the duty of a Sioux woman to toil, 
even though her husband had many horses and was 
a warrior with whom few of his people could measure 
head or body ? And Red Bird had loved Crow King 
with the affection of a strong nature for a strong man 
ever since that day when Crow King took from her 
hand the rich food that was to recover him from the 
[77] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

fearful ordeal of his first sun-dance — and that was 
years before, in the land of the Tetons by the banks 
of the Big Muddy. 

In those far days, when the Teton Sioux lived in 
Indian ease close by the feeding-ground of his uncle, 
Pte, the buffalo; while the white man was still com- 
pelled to lust in fear and longing for possession of 
the hills in which were hidden the yellow stones his 
heart coveted; when Sitting Bull and Gall, Crow 
King and Black Moon, and others who wrote their 
names in red on the lands of the Dakotas in later days, 
were but young men and well regarded, but had not 
yet attained to the places of dignity among their 
people, — in those days Crow King saw Red Bird 
and wanted her for his wife, to live by his side, to 
follow him when the people took the trail to hunt 
the game in the valleys between the Missouri and the 
great hills to the west, or to perpetrate on the bodies 
of their foes, the Crows, those disdainful scars that 
would disgrace the warrior among the ghosts. And 
Red Bird was quite willing to leave the lodge of her 
father and follow Crow King, who, even as a young 
man, gave promise of being rich in those attributes 
which once made all that there was for manhood 
in the sight of a Sioux maiden. But she would not 
share the tepee of Crow King with any other woman, 
and she would take the young man when she knew 
that she had the only place in his heart. Thus it 
came that, under the broiling sun of a midsummer 
day. Crow King and other young men offered them- 
selves in sacrifice at a great sun-dance, which the 
medicine men had ordered before the band started 
on a journey to the west, and which might be full of 
[78] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

perils. They would placate "Onk-te-gi," the spirit 
which has its abiding-place in the body of the ground 
animal, and propitiate all the evil spirits of the earth ; 
and they would offer prayers and sacrifice to the 
Great Spirit, to the end that their undertaking might 
not be made difficult by the machinations of the evil 
ones and that they might be blessed in their hunting 
and find their enemies, the Crows, rich in ponies, 
by the benign influence of the Great Spirit. 

With prayers and offerings the medicine men cut 
gashes in the breasts and shoulders of Crow King, 
and they picked up with cruel knives the hard muscles 
that lay under the red skin, and beneath these muscles 
they thrust strong little skewer-sticks ; and to the ends 
of these sticks they fastened the split end of a lariat, 
and the other end they fastened to poles and drew 
tight, so that Crow King, by standing on his toes, 
might escape being suspended from his shoulders 
and his breasts. And there Crow King danced and 
whistled, that the people who sat in the great circle 
about the medicine lodge and watched the dancers 
might know that his courage was great and that he 
disregarded the torture. While the sun made a day's 
journey Crow King and the other young men danced 
and bore the pangs of suffering, which was so great 
that their muscles stood out rigid like the sinews of 
the buffalo and their throats were parched so that they 
could not utter a sound, for it was not permitted that 
they might drink during the dance. 

So for a day Crow King endured, and his fortitude 

and disdain of suffering made the old men remark 

that there was a man, and the maidens admired in 

secret, and one of them wept and hoped that the 

[79] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

dance might soon be over. And it ended when the 
muscles to which the lariats were fastened, before 
and behind, were broken and torn by the motions of 
the dancer, and gave way, and the dancer fell out 
of the circle, his courage attested and the spirits 
propitiated. Then the medicine men rubbed into the 
gaping wounds on Crow King's breast and back a 
handful of earth, and he went to the feast, accepting 
from the hands of Red Bird the water and food he so 
craved. And they two were plighted and wed. Crow 
King taking of his choicest horses and leaving them 
at the doorway of the lodge of Red Bird's father, 
and taking away his bride, clad in the beautifully 
beaded bridal robe which had been made by her 
grandmother. With a brave heart and sound head. 
Crow King took a wife wise and beautiful, and the 
people said they would prosper as man and wife. 

Now for five winters and as many summers had 
Crow King and Red Bird lived as man and wife, and 
although no child had come to their tepee, they were 
still bound by their affection and Red Bird was envied 
of the women whose husbands regarded them lightly, 
even as Crow King was envied of the men whom he 
governed as a chief, by reason of his skill in warfare 
and in the chase. Therefore it was an evil day for 
Red Bird when Crow King told her that he was called 
by the ghosts, and she wept in the darkened lodge. 
For she could save Crow King only by having a dis- 
grace put upon her that would make the other women 
of her people to point the finger of scorn at her. Crow 
King, in after days, when he had come to be the friend 
of the white man, told me of this thing and of the 
great grief it brought upon him. 
[80] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

Crow King and his people had been fighting with 
their old enemies the Crows. Far into the Crow 
country, out beyond the Milk River and near to the 
country of the Red Jackets, had the Sioux carried the 
war, and they were rich in plunder and horses, for 
the Crows had taken the horses of the Piegans and 
had these and their own when the warriors of the 
Tetons descended on them. And there was bitter 
fighting, for the Crows were worthy foes and did not 
leave their ponies and their women an easy prey to 
their hereditary enemies. One day there had been 
hard fighting between the people of Crow King's 
band and the Crows, and when it was over, and each 
party had withdrawn, there were many dead and 
many wounded, and the Hunkpapas — who did not 
retreat — saw their enemies withdraw, then broke 
their camp and started for the country to the south, 
where they might refresh their horses and give heed 
to their wounds. 

And the most grievously wounded of those who had 
not been sent to the land of ghosts was Crow King. 
A Crow arrow had passed through his body, and he 
felt the blood in his lungs. He was marked for death, 
and, according to the custom of his people, he refused 
to be a burden to those who would be the better for 
going rapidly out of the enemy's country, and he 
directed that he be left to die where none might see 
him, on the prairie, and that Red Bird, who had re- 
mained behind in the encampment when the war 
party went forth, should be told that he died like a 
man. So they left him in a deep ravine where there 
was water and shelter, and with him they picketed 
his horse, that he might not be dismounted in the land 
[81] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

of the shades. They also left with him food and to- 
bacco — not for his physical comfort, for he was past 
the need of that, but for the comfort of his ghost after 
the earthly end. And he lay alone in the ravine where 
no enemy might see him, and drew his blanket over 
his head and waited for death. 

His people were not heartless in this, but it was 
part of their ceremonial so to dispose of the dead or 
dying, that they might not be an encumbrance on the 
living. When Reno left Custer, to surprise the Sioux 
camp on the Little Big Horn, in the early morning 
of June 25, 1876, his line of march took him past a 
very handsomely decorated and valuable tepee which 
contained nothing but the corpse of an Indian. The 
Sioux who were in that fight on the Little Big Horn 
told me years afterward that the corpse was that of a 
man killed seven days previous in a skirmish with the 
Crows and Shoshones, and, fearing that they would 
have a long march and be unable to give the body 
proper mortuary honors, they left it in their best tepee 
on the prairie. The dead Indian in the tepee was the 
brother of Chief Circling Bear. 

Thus it was that Crow King sat down alone to 
await the coming of the death that he did not fear, 
but his thoughts were of Red Bird and he sorrowed 
that he might not see her again. And in the fevered 
nights he had visions and the ghosts were close to him. 

"I know not how many nights I lay there," said 
Crow King; "but always there came a ghost, fore- 
most among all, who told me that I might yet live 
among my people if I would but vow that I would 
forget my pride and my place as a warrior, and for 
one dav be as a dog and go on all fours about the 
[82 ] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

camp of my people and take with me Red Bird. For 
many nights I would not make the vow, and each day 
I dragged myself to the water and drank and did not 
die. There came a night when the ghosts were thick 
and my heart was weak and sad, and I made the 
promise and vowed that Red Bird and myself would 
be as dogs among them, prowling through the camp 
during one sun. Then the ghosts gave me strength, 
and I mounted my horse and traveled for many days 
on the broad trail of my people before I reached our 
village. 

" They ran from me when I rode, starved and near 
dying, into the village, for they thought it was the 
ghost of Crow King; but Red Bird came to me and 
took me to her lodge of mourning and nursed me. 
And I told her the vow I had made ; but she, mourn- 
ing, cried that I had lost my senses. So it was that I 
lay for many nights and saw the ghosts, and they 
jeered at me for not keeping my vow and demanded 
that I do so or die and be with them. These things I 
told Red Bird, and she, fearing I might die, consented 
that she would go with me and keep my promise." 

One morning, when the dogs of the village were 
reconnoitring the outer lodges, there appeared among 
them a man and a woman, Crow King and Red Bird, 
going about on all fours and eating of the scraps that 
were thrown to the dogs. The people followed them 
about, jeering, and Red Bird hid her face, but kept 
her promise through the length of the day. This story 
I was told by many of the people, and also the end 
of it, years after. 

With the going down of the sun, Crow King and his 
wife went to their tepee and became as man and 
[83] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

woman again, but never thereafter as man and wife. 
The shame that Red Bird endured killed her love 
for Crow King, but she remained in his tepee uncom- 
plainingly for a long time. Crow King became well 
and strong, but there was a great grief on him, and he 
sorrowed that he had not died as a man. No man 
pointed the finger of scorn at him, for he was quick 
to see a jibe, and ready and able to take care of him- 
self and his honor as a warrior. The occurrence made 
no difference in his standing in the tribe, but with Red 
Bird it was different: the women and the children 
made mock of her, and she grew to hate the man who 
had made her the scorn of the camp. 

For two years she lived in the tepee of Crow King 
and said no word, but sorrowed. Then there came 
one day a young man of another band visiting, and 
while Crow King was sitting in council, Red Bird got 
up, and left his lodge, and went with the stranger, 
eloping to live among strange people. Crow King did 
not pursue them, nor did he show any anger, but 
when, two winters later, his band made a camp close 
to the village in which lived Red Bird and the man 
with whom she had eloped, he sought them out, and 
taking with him two of his best horses gave them to 
the new husband of Red Bird and told him he hoped 
the woman was happy and he would help her hus- 
band to riches, for he had put a great shame on her 
and she was right in leaving him. 

The loss of Red Bird did not put Crow King out 
of favor with fortune, and that in spite of the fact that 
he would have no more to do with ghosts or medicine 
of any sort, until the time when his brother. High 
Bear, fell ill. Crow King dearly loved his brother 
[84] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

High Bear, who had a wasting disease, and the medi- 
cine men of the Hunkpapas said that he was possessed 
of an evil spirit which should be exorcised. Had there 
been a white doctor in the neighborhood he might 
have told them that High Bear had tuberculosis, and 
that it would presently be unnecessary to employ any 
medicine man. 

In despair, but with belief. Crow King told the 
big medicine man of the band to cure his brother and 
he would pay the bill. He attacked High Bear with 
as much vigor as though he was a white medicine man 
and the patient the possessor of a vermiform appendix 
and rich relatives. With charms and incantations, 
he attacked the devil that was making High Bear 
cough and pine, and for every new form of treatment 
he invented a new excuse for a charge and took ponies 
from Crow King, who owned more horses than any 
man of his band. The medicine man might have 
felt some justification in relieving Crow King of his 
horses, in the knowledge that he had come by those 
same horses by means a little more high-handed, 
but not more honest, than those he was practicing. 
Horses and buffalo robes constituted the wealth of 
the Sioux in those days, for of money and the things 
money could buy they knew nothing. And Crow 
King, the Croesus of his band, was like to be impov- 
erished unless the medicine man hurried the pro- 
cess of nature and brought about the taking off of 
High Bear sooner than the course of his disorder war- 
ranted. For, inspired by the richness of the reward, 
he subjected the patient to such rigorous treatment, 
that he might well elect to die to escape it. 

It was a common practice of the southwestern and 
[85] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

western Indians to kill the medicine man who pre- 
tended to be able to cure a patient and failed. And 
this was just enough, for the medicine man of the In- 
dians never admitted that there was any doubt about 
his medicine — there was no "perhaps" in his treat- 
ment. He announced that he could cure the patient 
if he liked. I have heard of cases well within the 
memory of man, when the death of the medicine man 
followed at once on his failure to cure the patient, 
and the taking-off of the quack was by very violent 
means. This practice was never resorted to among the 
Sioux to my knowledge, or in the memory of the older 
Indians. The medicine man of the Sioux may have 
been sharper than his fellow bunco-man to the south 
and west, or it may be that he did not commit himself 
to the point of defaulting his own life. He always 
claims to have power of life and death, and when his 
treatment fails, he simply explains that the medicine 
of a power he could not reach or cope with was more 
potent than his medicine. He once wielded a tre- 
mendous power, but it is fast disappearing, so far 
as the outer and visible evidences of his old-time 
glory are concerned. And the affair of High Bear 
had much to do with breaking down the faith of the 
people in the medicine men. 

At the time of which I speak the medicine men were 
not so numerous among the Sioux living beyond the 
Missouri River as among those bands living to the 
east. The Hunkpapas, a band of the Trans- Missouri 
Sioux, from which sprang many of their biggest 
chiefs, supplied a very considerable share of the medi- 
cine men of the Tetons. They did not live always 
with one band, but went about visiting with their 
[86] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

faking brethren of the other bands. And it is probable 
that, although each individual knew himself to be a 
pretender, each was afraid that the other might have 
real medicine and destroy him with it. Therefore it 
was that, when High Bear was sick, and the most 
profitable patient in the Sioux nation, his doctors 
were not restricted to those of his own band, the 
Hunkpapas, but included many eminent fakirs from 
the other bands to the west of the Missouri. 

Upon High Bear they practiced their many arts. 
Each medicine man had for a fetich a charm of mighty 
power, with which he accomplished his magic. One 
would work through the potent agency of an eagle's 
claw, another cast out devils by means of the magic 
of an elk's horn, another by being possessor of the 
secret power in the claw of a bear. The medicine 
was generally in the form of some relic of a de- 
parted bird, beast, or fish. Some avoided the use of 
any charm, and I knew, and know still, an old fellow 
called Eats-No-Fish, whose peculiar powers were sup- 
posed to be derived from the abstinence from fish- 
eating which his name implies. 

A score of medicine men offered to try their arts 
upon High Bear, to no purpose. The man in charge 
tried to reduce his daily fever by the use of the sweat- 
bath, alternating with icy plunges — and these pro- 
moted the disorder, to the great delight of the fakirs, 
who insisted that a devil could be cast out only by the 
use of a more potent spirit, one declaring that the 
sick man had in his stomach bad medicine in the form 
of an eagle claw, with which so^ae evil-disposed medi- 
cine man had hoodooed him ; that he could not prac- 
tice upon the patient and have him disgorge the claw, 
[87] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

but would perform a spell by transferring the claw 
to his own stomach and so get rid of it. The test, 
made in public, was successful, in so far that it car- 
ried the medicine man to the very verge of the grave 
according to the testimony of his own lips ; his writh- 
ings were dreadful when he proclaimed that the bad 
medicine had taken up its abode in him. Further 
incantations resulted in the ejectment of a tremendous 
claw from the mouth of the medicine man. The cure 
was effected to the satisfaction of the concourse of 
people who witnessed the working of the medicine. 
But High Bear died. And Crow King was ruined, for 
his horses he had given to the medicine man, and the 
rest of his goods went to those who, according to 
tribal custom, could seize them. Then it was that 
Crow King washed his hands of the medicine men 
and administered a blow to superstition that lingered 
in the minds of the people for many moons. Inci- 
dentally he put the tribe of quacks out of business. 

Crow King made a feast. He was no longer a 
widower. It is not good for a white man to live alone, 
but it is out of the question for an Indian to live in a 
womanless wigwam. He had taken unto himself a 
wife who did the work of the household. To her he 
gave orders to prepare the feast. Three tepees he 
joined together to make a great lodge. A dog soldier 
he sent forth, furnished with the little sticks that each 
Sioux of any station used, peculiarly marked, like 
the invitation-cards of the white man, and each medi- 
cine man received one of the sticks as a notification 
that he was expected as a guest, and to bring with 
him the medicine outfit through which he derived his 
supernatural power. 

[88] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

The woman cooked the viands : dainty bits of buf- 
falo-hump, selected portions of deer meat, Indian 
turnips and sugar in quantity; for, although Crow 
King was impoverished, his credit was good, his 
friends knew that there were many ponies for Crow 
King in the Crow pastures. In the centre of the great 
lodge a roaring fire was built, and around the inner 
walls of the lodge were seated the medicine men. 
Then Crow King made a speech. He told his guests 
that they were great medicine men, their charms were 
potent, and their influence with the spirits such as to 
make them feared of all men. He had bidden them to 
a feast, but before the feasting, he would ask that they 
rejoice his eyes with a sight of the charms with which 
they performed their wonders. And each medicine 
man, seeing the opportunity to exploit the potency 
of his particular fetich, produced a medicine-bag and 
took from it, with an elaboration of ceremony, the 
charm that he worked by. Crow King walked about 
the circle, and took from each his medicine-sack con- 
taining his charm : a bear claw in one, the foot of a 
rabbit in another, the dried eye of a wolf in a third, 
and so on, until he had accumulated practically all 
the medicine then standing between the Hunkpapa 
Sioux and untoward fate, in the form of evil spirits. 
And the whole lot, including the medicine-bags, he 
threw into the fire. 

The medicine men looked to see the impious one 
drop dead ; the crowd gathered before the open lodge 
groaned. Crow King made another speech. He told 
them that their medicine was a lie, and that they had 
robbed him as they had always robbed the people. 
He invited them to take what revenge they might on 
[89] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

him, but not to let him catch them at it. Then he 
ordered the food served, and they were constrained to 
eat with what appetite they might. 

Christianizing influences have gone far to redeem 
the Sioux from their more nonsensical superstitions, 
but the old men at Standing Rock still speak with 
awe of the time when Crow King defied the ghosts 
and the medicine men, and left the people without a 
charm to save them from the powers of evil. And that 
feast was the beginning of the end of the medicine 
man among the Sioux, as an institution. 

As the representative of the government at Stand- 
ing Rock agency, I had come to know Crow King 
and to regard him highly as a man of influence who 
might be depended upon to exert that influence in 
the right direction. He had been with Sitting Bull, 
and was one of the lieutenants of that worthy in the 
campaign that put an end to the war strength of the 
Sioux. When he had come into the agency as a hos- 
tile, I found him to be a man who could be depended 
on to do what he agreed to. We had an understand- 
ing, and I was easily content to do nothing that would 
aflFect his standing or influence with his people; for 
although the government no longer recognized the 
tribal authority of the chief, still it was easier to deal 
with one man of influence than to have to deal with 
many irresponsible ones. 

I wanted Crow King for my friend, on account of 
the uprightness of his character and the importance 
of his attitude in the eyes of the other Indians — and 
they were far from being a gentle, easily handled lot 
in those days, when the light of the war-fires was 
[90 ] 




CROW KING 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

still in the eyes of many of them. Crow King had 
met me in many matters of importance, but in the 
most important aim of my administration he was 
loath to listen to me. I was trying to get the late 
hostiles to put their children into the school, and 
wanted a few of the head men to set an example 
by sending their children in. Crow King had a 
daughter, then about eight years old, the child of 
the wife who succeeded Red Bird, and he would 
not, in the beginning, consent to part with her. I 
talked to him frequently about placing her in the 
agency boarding school, and his answer invariably 
was "Toksta" (wait awhile) ; he would do anything 
else I asked him, but he would not consent to place 
his girl in school. 

This trait — love of children — is the most com- 
mon characteristic of the Indian father and mother. 
The affection displays itself in lavish form and terms 
of endearment, and the parents idolize the children, 
who in their turn show the most unbounded affec- 
tion for both father and mother. I have seen a boy 
returned from a non-reservation school, bearing all 
the consciousness of his superiority to his earlier asso- 
ciates, run half a mile to meet, embrace, and fondle 
his father or mother, veritable old blanket Indians. 

If Crow King could be induced to give up his girl 
and put her in school, I might feel that I had made 
a start with the children of the other late hostiles, 
of whom there were about three thousand on the 
reservation. This he refused to do for some months, 
but always with the encouraging word, "Toksta." 
One evening early in the spring "of 1882, while en- 
gaged in my office, I was told that Crow King was 
[91 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

outside and wanted to see me. I went out. He stood 
at the door, holding a horse by a rawhide lariat ; on 
the horse was seated a girl, his daughter. 

He made no speech, or uttered a word, but put 
into my hand the rein by which he led the horse, and 
turned away to hide his grief at parting with his child, 
whom I placed in the agency boarding-school that 
evening, admonishing the principal to see that the 
girl was given every possible care and attention to 
make her contented, with the hope that other Indians 
of the hostile camp might be induced to send in their 
children, which hope was fully realized during the 
following summer. 

The horse upon which Crow King brought his 
daughter to me was a six-year-old iron gray, trained 
to buffalo-hunting, of more than ordinary swiftness, 
and the only one he owned at the time. When the 
hostile Sioux surrendered, at Camp Poplar River, 
Forts Buford and Keogh, they were dismounted and 
disarmed, but the principal chiefs were each permitted 
to retain one horse. This iron gray, being Crow 
King's favorite horse, was retained by him, and taken 
down the Missouri River from Fort Buford to Stand- 
ing Rock agency on the same steamboat on which 
Chief Crow King and the members of his surrendered 
band were brought. 

Immediately upon Crow King's handing me the 
lariat by which he led the horse, he turned about and 
started on foot toward his camp, about four miles dis- 
tant, leaving the horse and his daughter with me. I 
knew Indian character too well — and Crow King's 
in particular — to call him back to get his horse, as 
it would have been to him highly insulting. I knew 
[92] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

immediately upon meeting him at the door that he 
had brought his daughter to be placed in school, and 
that he had given me his only horse to show his 
respect and good intentions ; but having hitherto re- 
frained from accepting a gift from an Indian under 
my charge, I was in a dilemma to know how to pro- 
ceed in the premises. 

I did not meet Crow King after this until some 
weeks had elapsed, but I learned in the meantime that 
he was working among his people to have them send 
their children to school, as he had sent his daughter, 
and his efforts produced good results. 

Determining to "play Indian" on Crow King as 
he had manifested his friendship for ine, and learn- 
ing, upon inquiry, that a man named Zahn, living 
on the Cannon Ball River, about twenty-five miles 
north of Standing Rock agency, had a four-year old 
mare and colt for sale, I drove up to his ranch and 
purchased them. The mare was an excellent animal, 
very gentle, and the colt was an exceptionally good 
one. 

This was about four weeks after Crow King had 
presented me with his only horse. I started for the 
Indian camp late in the evening, leading the mare be- 
hind my vehicle, with the colt following, timing my 
drive so as to reach the village shortly after sundown, 
when most of the Indians would be in their tepees. 
Indians in those days invariably had a stake driven in 
the ground near the door of their tepees, so that 
mounted visitors might tie their horses securely when 
calling. Crow King's lodge stood at the extreme 
southwestern corner of the camp, close to the main 
traveled wagon-road. I drove as noiselessly as pos- 
[93] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

sible through the Indian village, and as we were pass- 
ing his lodge, Philip Wells, whom I had taken with 
me for that purpose, jumped from the wagon without 
stopping our team, and quickly fastening the rope, by 
which the mare was led, to the hitching-stake, we pro- 
ceeded along the main road for a short distance fur- 
ther, then made a detour to avoid passing through the 
camp in returning to the agency. As a matter of course 
Crow King knew by whom the mare tied to the door 
of the lodge was given, but he never mentioned to me 
the horse he had given me, nor the mare and colt with 
which I had "played Indian" upon him. 

One afternoon in the summer of 1883 I started by 
team to visit the camp of the late hostiles, and met 
Mrs. Crow King on the road, on her way to the agency, 
to see me, in order to obtain permission for her daugh- 
ter at the school to visit her father, who, she said, was 
very ill and could not live many hours. I wrote her 
a note to take to the principal of the school, permit- 
ting the girl to visit her home, and I proceeded directly 
to Crow King's lodge. He received me calmly, told 
me he was ready to die and was glad I had come to 
see him. I found him suffering from pneumonia and 
in a hopeless state from the Indian point of view, but 
by no means hopeless if properly cared for. He was 
painted for death, as was customary among the In- 
dians of that period, and nearly every Indian of the 
village was gathered around his lodge, ready to seize 
upon all property he was possessed of as soon as he 
ceased breathing, such also having then been the cus- 
tom of the Sioux. 

I dispatched a courier for the agency physician, 
also directed that a spring wagon be sent at once, 
[94] 



CROW KING STOPS THE MEDICINE MEN 

supplied with mattress and blankets; and knowing 
Crow King's lack of faith in medicine men, I remained 
in his lodge to reason with him and obtain his con- 
sent, before the wagon arrived, to place himself in 
my hands for treatment. He would have no medicine 
man, and I feared that his hatred for the tribe would 
easily include the agency physician. I told him I 
wanted to take him to the agency and thought he 
could be cured. 

" Medicine is a lie ; all medicine men are liars," said 
Crow King. 

I assured him that medicine was not necessary in 
his case ; that what he needed, apart from a little stim- 
ulant, was a comfartable bed with proper food and 
attention, and he consented, rather to my astonish- 
ment, to go with me. We loaded him into the wagon 
and drove him to the agency, and put him in a spa- 
cious, well-ventilated room, which had but recently 
been fitted up for a dispensary. I permitted his wife, 
brother, and sister to remain in the room with him, 
and kept all other Indians away from the building by 
stationing an Indian police guard around it. 

I had taken rather a desperate chance. If Crow 
King died, the Indians would be lost to faith in my 
"medicine," but if he lived I might be certain of the 
event having a great influence. I detailed three re- 
liable employees, who took turns in carrying out the 
doctor's instructions in caring for Crow King; and 
both the doctor and myself gave him such attention as 
few sick Indians ever had before. The second day of 
the treatment he consented to have the death-paint 
removed from his face. In ten days he walked home. 
Before leaving, he tried to thank me for what had been 
[95] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

done for him, but his feelings were too strong for ut- 
terance. 

Soon after this Crow King went out over the reserva- 
tion to show himself to his people after his recovery, 
and to the day of his death, when he committed to my 
care another child, was a strong advocate for the 
"medicine" of the white man. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE GREAT BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

Story of the Killing of Five Thousand Buffaloes by a Hunting Party 
of Six Hundred Mounted Sioux in the Summer of 1882. 

PTE, the Buffalo, was feeding on the rich grass- 
lands at the west end of the Great Sioux reser- 
vation, under the jurisdiction of the Standing 
Rock agency. The Indians at the agency knew it; 
they knew it instinctively, though it had been many 
years since the buffalo had sought the hunting-grounds 
of that part of the reservation. They believed that 
Pte, finding himself near to extinction at the hands of 
white pot-hunters, sought out the reservation that he 
might, in the end, fulfill his mission and die to pro- 
vide walls for the tepee, robes for the couch, sinews 
for the bow, and meat for the store of the sons of the 
Lakodia. For Pte carried within his hairy cover the 
furnishing for all the primitive needs of his brother 
the Sioux. On the wings of the wind, then, came the 
news that Pte had arrived to make a Sioux holiday 
and provide such meat as had never been furnished, 
even by the most conscientious and liberal of beef- 
contractors. With this rich store of succulent meat 
in sight, giving assurance of a summer of good cheer, 
with such sport as must have appealed mightily to 
the heart of the hunter, it was not possible that the 
Indians could be held in check. I therefore took the 
initiative and proposed to the head men that a great 
[97] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

buffalo-hunt should be organized. I have been mea- 
surably successful in dealing with the Indian because 
I have treated him as a man, but I am firmly con- 
vinced that the organization of the hunt at that time, 
and under the existing conditions, did more than any- 
thing else in bringing about a good understanding 
with the people whom I lived with and guided for so 
many years. 

When I took charge of the Indians on the Standing 
Rock reservation, they were a sullen lot, and suspi- 
cious of every move made by the government or its 
administrative officers. On the day that I arrived at 
the agency to assume charge, September 8, 1881, 
Sitting Bull and one hundred and forty-six of the 
more turbulent of his followers were taken down the 
Missouri River to be held prisoners at Fort Randall. 
The circumstances were not auspicious. I moved 
my family and household goods down the Missouri, 
from Bismarck to Fort Yates, the military post ad- 
joining the agency on the south, making the trip on 
the steamer General Sherman. As the steamer ap- 
proached the Fort Yates landing I saw a prospect that 
was not calculated to inspire hope in the breast of a 
man who had accepted the appointment with the sin- 
cere determination of turning a lot of wild Indians 
into civilized human beings by moral suasion and 
firm guidance, divorced altogether from the sugges- 
tion of coercion. 

On the bench of the river-bank stood the tepees of 
Sitting Bull and his band. A cordon of troops hemmed 
in the encampment. All around this bench, where 
stood the camp of the most vicious and bitter of the 
Hunkpapa Sioux, there was and is an amphitheatre 
[ 98 J 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

of hills, and on these hills lay the people of the reser- 
vation. The showing of force was sufficient to quell 
any disposition on the part of the Indians to interfere 
with the removal of Sitting Bull and his band, even 
if they had been so disposed, which they were not. 
The more intelligent of the Sioux had long since 
considered Sitting Bull a boastful pretender, that as 
a leader he was a fraud ; and his power in the Sioux 
nation was gone when he was deserted by Gall, Crow 
King, and other of the trusted chiefs. A few hours 
after my arrival, Sitting Bull, with his one hundred 
and forty-six immediate followers, was taken down 
the Missouri River to Fort Randall, and I was left to 
deal with nearly six thousand Indians, over half of 
whom had been out with Sitting Bull in active hostil- 
ity for several years, and who, from the disappearance 
of buffalo in the section of country to which they had 
fled after the campaign of 1876, were compelled to 
return and surrender to the United States military 
authorities at various frontier posts, the garrisons of 
which had been constantly harassing them after the 
battle of the Little Big Horn. 

On the Standing Rock reservation, and principally 
huddled about the agency — which was located then, 
as now, sixty miles south of Bismarck, North Dakota, 
on the west bank of the Missouri River — there were 
Hunkpapas, Yanktonais, Blackfeet, Minniconjous, 
Sans Arcs, Oglalas, Brules, and some minor bands : 
a miscellaneous crew, many of them fresh from a life 
of vagabondage, and not a few as hostile at heart as 
any Indians ever were. It was not promising material, 
and it was very raw, but I was far from hopeless of 
doing something with it. 

[99] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

It was in the following spring, after a hard winter, 
that I was inspired to take the people on a buffalo 
hunt that would at once show my faith in them and 
give them the healthful exercise and natural food they 
were pining for. 

I was on excellent terms with those of the leaders 
who had intelligence enough to appreciate the fact 
that the white man's way must be made the path of 
the Indian. The most trustworthy of these men I 
had appointed policemen. The chiefs of dignity and 
importance, who had shown a good disposition, were 
treated with consideration. I reckoned among my 
friends such men as Gall and Crow King, both of 
whom had been lieutenants of Sitting Bull, and had 
accompanied him in his flight after the Custer affair ; 
Rain-in-the-Face and John Grass, the latter a dis- 
tinguished orator and influential man, Fire Heart, 
Kill Eagle, Crazy Walking, — now judge of the court 
of Indian offenses at Standing Rock agency, — 
Spotted Horn Bull, Gray Eagle, Charging Thunder, 
and many others who were not chiefs originally but 
who were advanced as I found them influential and 
intelligent. Through these men I made known my 
desire that the people might organize a hunt. 

The bands were all camped about the agency, 
and for several days previous to that upon which 
the expedition was to move, June 10, there was such 
excitement as had not been seen for many moons. 
Men, women, and children were engaged in the prep- 
aration. Arms were brought out and cleaned ; am- 
munition was provided, and this was a most important 
matter. I had been engaged in quietly disarming the 
people, and it was impossible for any of them to ob- 
[ 100] 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

tain cartridges except on my order. These orders were 
made in favor of individuals and for a limited number 
of cartridges, but it was desirable that they should not 
receive the impression that I was fearful of their ob- 
taining too great a supply. 

The ponies that had been having a hard time during 
the winter were given such careful attention as must 
have surprised them. The finest clothing and decora- 
tions were brought out, and the women vied with one 
another in embellishing the personal outfits of the 
hunters of their families. It would hardly be possible 
to make a more glittering array of a body of Indians, 
and the plains of Dakota had not for many years seen 
so resplendent a gathering of these people as that 
which moved out of Standing Rock just after dawn on 
the tenth of June, 1882. And it was many hours later 
before the last of the straggling column disappeared 
from view over the buttes to the west of the agency. 

The buffalo had been located one hundred miles to 
the west, in a country now beyond the limits of the 
reservation, but which was at that time within the 
boundary. The great body of the people would move 
slowly, and it was arranged that the Indians should 
have a few days the start of myself and the little party 
who were to accompany me. On the morning of June 
15 I left the agency. With me was my son, Harry, 
then a lad of fourteen, who distinguished himself on 
the hunt by killing seven buffalo calves, Steve Burk, 
James Stitsell, Thomas Miller, and John Eagle Man, 
the latter an Indian policeman. Our supply-wagon 
had been sent on ahead. We overtook the main body 
of Indians that evening at Cedar Creek, fifty miles 
west of the agency, where a camp was made and the 
[101] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

important business of selecting and starting off the 
scouts to locate the herd was gone through with. 

The camp was made according to the tribal custom, 
and all the honors were accorded traditional belief. 
In the slovenly Indian of the agency there is little to 
suggest that he and his people do all things by system, 
that he and they are the creatures of custom ; but, 
in fact, the Sioux has the most solemn regard for 
the usages of his people. He is given to ceremonial 
wherever it is possible, and he is unprogressive, ac- 
cording to our light, because he will not undertake to 
do those things for which custom has prescribed no 
system. The buffalo hunt was unquestionably the 
most important business of the year to the Sioux, and 
in going into the hunt an elaborate ceremonial, some 
portions of it based on good sense and much of it on 
the outgrowth of arbitrary custom, was indulged in by 
them. 

When I overtook the Indians at Cedar Creek (the 
south fork of the Cannon Ball River) the camp was 
pitched close to where the Bismarck and Black Hills 
trail crosses that stream. An opening had been left in 
the circle of lodges and I was conducted through this. 
The camp was practically deserted, but for a few old 
men and women. The Indians had gathered in a great 
body some distance to the west of the camp, and to 
this gathering-place I made my way. I may say that, 
although I had spent ten years with the Sisseton and 
Wahpeton bands, I knew little of the customs of the 
Teton bands, and the ceremonial of a buffalo hunt 
was new to me. 

The two thousand Indians were seated on the prai- 
rie, forming a crescent-shaped body, the horns of the 
[ 102 ] 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

crescent opening to the west. At the south horn of the 
crescent were seated the important men in the hunt 
organization. Running Antelope, the leader of the 
hunt and an orator of prominence, at the extreme 
end ; next to him Long Soldier, and then Red Horse, 
who divided with Running Antelope the direction of 
the party. Around the crescent the people were seated 
with due regard for rank from the place of honor, the 
men in the front rows. Across the horns of the cres- 
cent, the opening would measure a hundred yards. 
Before the place occupied by Running Antelope there 
was set up a painted stone, some ten inches high, an- 
swering the purpose of an altar, and as I approached, 
there gathered about the altar eight young men who 
had been selected as scouts to go ahead and spy out 
the buffalo. At their head was Crazy Walking, and 
all had been carefully chosen, not oniy for their quali- 
ties as hunters, but because they were known to be 
truthful and of good moral character. They were as 
fine a body of young men as could be found in the 
Sioux nation, and many of them came to be men of 
prominence, Crazy Walking being now, as I have 
said, an Indian judge at Standing Rock agency. 

The scouts being seated, Running Antelope ha- 
rangued them on the importance of their mission and 
how necessary it was that their work should be care- 
fully done and correctly reported. He pointed to the 
importance of the undertaking, the necessity for cau- 
tion, and closed by administering to each of them an 
oath binding them to report correctly what they saw 
in the hunting country. The oath was administered 
amid breathless silence, the men in the semicircle 
even putting away their pipes while Running Antelope 
[ 103] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

filled the sacred pipe. This he did with much delib- 
eration, then, taking a spoon-shaped wooden utensil 
used only on ceremonial occasions, he drew a coal 
from the fire, placed it on the tobacco, offered the pipe 
to the earth in front of him, to propitiate the spirits 
which make the ground fruitful, then to the sky, in- 
voking the blessing of the Great Spirit. Taking a pull 
from the pipe, with the peculiar hissing sound of the 
Indian smoker, he passed it to Crazy Walking, who 
placed his hand, holding the bowl of the pipe, on the 
painted stone and drew one puff of smoke, and so 
passed it down the line, each scout repeating the per- 
formance. I was hardly prepared for the change that 
came over the multitude when the ceremony was 
concluded. Instantly every man owning a horse was 
on his feet, shouting and gesticulating and congratu- 
lating the scouts on their good fortune, and the horses 
were brought up. John Eagle Man, my policeman, 
explained to me that the scouts must now be escorted 
forth from the circle and taken some distance on their 
way, then the escort must race back and ride into and 
between the horns of the crescent, following a line 
upon which three freshly cut green bushes had been 
set up, about ten yards apart, and within a few feet 
of the front rank of the Indians. If, in passing the 
bushes, the leader of the race should fail to knock any 
of these bushes down, the hunt might as well be aban- 
doned ; should he knock one down, it would augur but 
indifferent success ; if two were knocked over, the 
chase would be fairly successful, and if, by a happy 
chance, the rider should upset all three of the bushes, 
then there would be a great amount of game killed 
and the people would be rich beyond the telling. 
[ 104] 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

My knowledge of the Indian had already taught me 
that nothing impresses him so much as having the 
reputation of being lucky or bringing good luck. I 
had an excellent horse, a present from Crow King, as 
narrated in chapter six. For several weeks the animal 
had been fed with grain and well exercised, and I 
could depend on his speed. I made up my mind then 
that I would try for the reputation of having good 
medicine as a prophet by knocking down the bushes. 

A howling, shouting, joyous mob of about three 
hundred mounted men started out with the scouts. 
It takes an occasion of this sort to induce the Sioux to 
throw off his affected indifference and his borrowed 
reputation for stoicism. As a matter of fact, my ex- 
perience among the Indians has taught me that when 
they are happy they are exuberant and noisy in their 
demonstrations of joy, and the band that went forth 
that evening, singing and careering about on their 
horses, were as light-hearted a lot of men as I ever 
saw anywhere. They dashed recklessly about the 
scouts, touching them with lucky charms, shouting 
out encouragement and advice, and joking them on 
their love-affairs. For about two miles the escort con- 
tinued with the scouts; then a whoop rang out that 
was taken up by some hundreds of mounted men, and 
screaming a good-by to the scouting party, the escort 
wheeled and dashed back toward the camp. I was 
hardly ready for the beginning of the race, but re- 
covered soon enough to be well up with the leaders. I 
had something of an advantage over the Indians by 
having observed the lay of the land very closely while 
going out, and that a slight deviation from the direct 
course in returning to camp would avoid some rough 
[105] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

ground and stony ridges, which would greatly tax a 
horse running at topmost speed. Furthermore, my 
horse had not been worn out in the display of horse- 
manship incident to the outgoing journey indulged in 
by the Indians, and I made up my mind to save him 
for a fast finish. 

The details of that mad race in the midst of a swarm 
of whooping Indians do not remain very fresh in my 
memory. I only know that, as I drew up to the horns 
of the crescent, there was only one Indian within sev- 
eral yards of me, both of us headed straight for the 
bushes that bore the tale of the prophecy. I managed 
to nose my Indian out at the finish, and rode pellmell 
along the front of the crescent-shaped column of men 
and women, who retained their places, to witness the 
finish and rejoice according to augury. They moved 
not an inch, and I swerved my horse in the nick of 
time, went straight at the bushes, and rode down all 
three of them. 

The tremendous row that followed this performance 
I was prepared for, after witnessing the other demon- 
stration, but I had had no idea of the importance that 
would be attached to the feat. By the time they were 
through with me, I understood that I had good medi- 
cine and had established myself in the esteem of the 
Indians of Standing Rock agency. 

The next morning we took the trail after the scouts. 
The direction was due west, and we went forward in 
most orderly formation. Running Antelope and the 
other leaders prescribing rules which none might 
break. One hundred men were selected and desig- 
nated as soldiers, their faces being painted to indicate 
their oflSce, and their business being to preserve order 
[ 106 ] 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

on the march. My son Harry, being well mounted, 
was made a soldier. 

At the head of the column marched twelve men 
whose office it was to make the pace. They walked 
slowly and with much deliberation, the object being 
to restrain the better-mounted or more impetuous, 
and the gait of the pacemaker was equal to that of 
the slowest old man in the party. Every three miles 
or thereabouts the pacemakers halted and sat down 
for a smoke and rest, and during these periods of rest 
the old men and great hunters told stories of their 
prowess in the hunting field. 

The main body marched in two columns, a few hun- 
dred yards apart, the Hunkpapas and Blackfeet to 
the left and the Yanktonais to the right. I traveled 
with the Hunkpapas until the hunt really began, 
when the Yanktonais made a row about it and de- 
clared their right to enjoy the benefit of traveling in 
company with the good medicine that I possessed, 
and I went over to the other column. We made no 
more than ten miles a day, and the march was weari- 
some enough, but it was relieved at night by the feast- 
ing, dancing, and story-telling in the camps. The 
greatest orators and chief warriors of the Sioux nation 
were in the party with us : Gall, whom I have always 
regarded as one of the most intelligent men of his race, 
a great orator and natural leader ; John Grass, a man 
who became a great power with his people; Crow 
King, Rain-in-the-Face, Spotted Horn Bull, and 
other men of the Hunkpapas, whose names were 
household words in the days when the Sioux had still 
the pernicious idea that they were the equals of the 
white man in the field. In such company — the said 
[107] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

company having the material for feast and smoking — 
there was no lack of entertainment at night, and I 
frequently had to tell the people that I was sleepy in 
order to have them leave, that I might retire for the 
night. 

The trail led through what was then and is still the 
finest grazing country on this continent. It is not a 
plains country, except in the sense that it bears little 
timber, but is diversified by draws and small hills, 
with here and there a row of majestic buttes relieving 
the line of the horizon. Water-courses were suffi- 
ciently numerous to provide for the stock, and the 
ponies were in good condition. 

The march lasted four days, and by the end of the 
fourth day we were beyond the present boundary of 
the Standing Rock reservation. At that time the 
boundary on the west was the 103d degree of west 
longitude, but one degree was cut off by the agreement 
of 1889. In the forenoon of the fourth day the ad- 
vance-guard made out the scouts. They were cut out 
against the sky-line some ten miles away, and even at 
that distance our people read their signals. The sig- 
nals were made out before the men were visible to the 
eye, in fact, for each of the scouts carried a little cir- 
cular mirror and signaled his message by a compara- 
tively perfect heliographic system, which was read by 
our people and repeated. 

A great herd of buffalo was grazing within a few 
miles of the scouts. Camp was made that night to the 
leeward, and within striking distance of the hunting- 
ground, due provision being made that the grazing 
herd should not be disturbed. When I arose next 
morning the camp was the scene of much excited 
[ 108] 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

activity. A half-dozen grindstones had been carried 
along, and a clamoring mob stood about each grind- 
stone, waiting for a turn at the knife-sharpening, 
which could not have been attempted before with- 
out interfering with the good medicine. While they 
were sharpening their knives. Shave Head, an Indian 
policeman, announced to the people that "The Fa- 
ther" wanted a live buffalo calf. Camp was broken, 
to the end that it might be moved up closer to the 
scene of slaughter that was to ensue, and the hunters 
mounted. I could not see that there was any general 
supervision of the hunt after the game came in sight, 
but the traditional rules of the Sioux in buffalo- 
hunting were rigidly adhered to. 

There were about six hundred mounted hunters in 
the party, and they rode in two broad columns where 
it was possible, but using the draws and ravines to shel- 
ter them and prevent the game from taking fright and 
stampeding before the Indians were amongst the bi- 
son. I was well up in front of my party when we came 
out on an elevation within a few hundred yards of the 
nearest buffalo. 

It was the knowledge of what would take place 
when that band of buffalo-hungry Indians swooped 
down into the valley, presently, that made the scene 
that presented itself intensely interesting. So far as 
the eye could gather, the picture was pastoral, with 
many thousands of cattle quietly grazing on the slopes 
of a hundred elevations. The knowledge that the 
moving animals in the pastoral scene were buffalo, the 
greatest game in the world, contributed to the element 
of personal excitement ; but for the rest, I saw just such 
a picture a few months ago in crossing the country to 
[109] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the east of that hunting-ground, where the cattle of 
the "L7" outfit range. The buffalo had shed their 
hair and looked like a vast herd of black cattle. 

The slayers halted before rushing on their prey. 
They were no longer agency Indians. Every man of 
the lot had discarded every superfluity in the way of 
clothing and was simply and effectively garbed in a 
breech-cloth. Most of them carried repeating rifles 
and all had breech-loaders, except a few of the older 
men and the boys, whose poverty forced them to use, 
if not to be content with, the bow and arrow. And 
every man had a hunting-knife. 

There was no shouting as the race for the herd 
began, and we were among the buffalo, a column at- 
tacking eack flank, before they knew it. A few of the 
animals looked up and sniffed, some scampered to a 
distance, but there was no stampede. In fact, so 
widely were they scattered and so immense was the 
herd — estimated at fifty thousand —that a stam- 
pede would not have been possible. As the first rifle 
cracked, a few of the animals began to run, but the 
hunters followed them, and the hunt became a slaugh- 
ter in less time than I have taken to tell it. 

Of the details of the killing but few incidents remain 
with me. A hunter would ride up close to his quarry, 
take as careful aim as possible, and generally get his 
meat with a single shot. A tough old bull or a par- 
ticularly active two-year-old might give him trouble ; 
but so far as I could see — and I was somewhat busy 
myself — the hunter shot, gave the struggling animal 
the cowp de grace, and went on for another shot. 
As I came out of Hidden Wood Creek just previous 
to the charge, Crow's Ghost rode up and advised me 
r 110 1 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

not to charge with the first column, and John Eagle 
Man, whom I had hitherto seen only in the sedate 
habiliments of an Indian policeman, but who now 
sported a breech-clout and wore a red handkerchief 
bound about his temples, tendered the same advice. 
I had some difficulty in keeping my party in check, 
and my son, Harry, was particularly keen for the 
game ; but we got into the hunt with some show of 
order. 

There was no rest during the day. The Indians 
killed until they were dismounted or exhausted — not 
a few of them were dismounted. 

Late in the afternoon I found an old fellow un- 
conscious, whose horse had fallen with him, another 
whose horse had been disemboweled and who had 
had his own leg ripped from the ankle to the knee by 
an enraged buffalo, another with a badly lacerated 
hand, with three fingers blown off by the bursting of 
his gun. The hunters had paid absolutely no atten- 
tion to those injured men ; even their relatives, who 
would ordinarily make a great row if they were ill, had 
passed them by unnoticed, and they had lain for hours 
in the sun, bleeding to death. We bound up their 
wounds, made them shelters from the sun, and left 
them as comfortable as possible until we found their 
relatives and had them taken to camp. 

There were some amusing incidents. Wolf Neck- 
lace, an old man about sixty years of age, handicapped 
by poverty and the fact that a paternal government 
did not think he needed a gun, was constrained to use 
the bow and arrow. I found him ambling along on 
a gray pony within easy range of an old buffalo into 
which he had shot a number of arrows without bring- 
[111 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

ing the animal to the ground. Somebody offered to 
kill the buffalo. "No," said the Indian, "the arrows 
will work in and he'll die." And the old fellow calmly 
rode on, shooting an occasional arrow into the bull 
until he dropped. 

Another Indian, one Peter Skunk, had shot and 
wounded a big bull with a revolver and had been dis- 
mounted. Fortunately he landed close beside a large 
boulder in a little depression in the prairie. He put the 
boulder between himself and the bull with what ex- 
pedition he could muster, and there we found him, the 
bull chasing him about the rock and giving him no 
time for a shot. We offered to make the killing for 
him, but he screamed an enraged "No !" For about 
five minutes the Indian dodged the bull, until the ani- 
mal became tired. When he paused for a minute, 
Skunk took advantage of the pause and planted a 
shot behind the ear that stopped the animal. 

I have known but few Indians die of heart-disease, 
but in the midst of the hunt one met death from that 
cause. We found a man crouching behind a rock ; he 
had dismounted and his horse was grazing near by, 
the rope trailing. The hunter had dismounted to pick 
off his game with greater certainty ; his gun rested on 
the rock, it was cocked, and a finger was on the trig- 
ger ; in the very act of shooting, death smote him in- 
stantaneously. 

For myself I had good luck. The advice of Eagle 
Man was too good to be disregarded. Moreover, that 
faithful ally was by my side, determined that I should 
not get hurt in getting my first buffalo. The column 
with which I was riding was to attack the herd on the 
left flank, the other column on the other flank, the two 
[ 112 1 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

columns being about five miles apart when the charge 
was made ; and the herd was to be driven together for 
the slaughter, escape being possible only to the west, 
as we attacked from the northeast and southeast. 
After the first few scattering shots there was a tre- 
mendous din all over the field, and the wildness of 
some of the shooting made me thankful that I was 
not in the melee; and I had my reward. A little 
bunch of buffalo dropped behind the herd and di- 
rectly in front of us. We rode down on the animals, 
and I picked out a fine three-year-old cow and fired 
into her flank at close quarters. I knew that it was 
customary for the Indians to shoot a fleeing buffalo 
in the flank, trusting to the certainty that the bullet 
would work in and disable the animal. In this case I 
aimed a little high, the cow turned, and my pony, 
knowing more about buffalo-hunting than I did, 
promptly wheeled to keep out of her way. I came 
very near going out of the hunt that instant, for the 
sudden swerve of the pony almost unseated me and 
sent my Winchester flying twenty feet away. The cow 
turned at once to follow the herd, and I picked up my 
rifle and followed her ; but before I could get another 
shot the animal again charged. I shot her between 
the eyes as she rushed at my mount, which only made 
her shake her head and wheel to follow the herd ; but 
a well-directed shot behind the right fore-shoulder, as 
she turned to the left, settled the cow, and I had my 
first buffalo. I got four others and quit, in the know- 
ledge that I had no means of taking care of more meat. 
I had a good stiff ride back to camp that evening, 
for I had lost Harry and spent some time looking for 
him, and it was long after dark when the Indians got 
[113] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

back to their camp. They were all too tired for story- 
telling that night, but an estimate was made of the 
number of buffalo killed, and it was proved correct 
the next day, when about two thousand carcasses were 
butchered, no attempt at butchering being made on 
the first day. 

I slept long the next morning, and when I rose I 
found that the entire Indian encampment had been 
moved out close to the field of the hunt. My tent stood 
alone, but ranged about it, tied to stakes, were twenty- 
two buffalo calves, the Indians' response to my re- 
quest for a single calf! 

The men were at work skinning and cutting up the 
dead animals, when I arrived on the field, and that 
day was given up to this work ; but the next day they 
followed the herd to the west, and resumed the slaugh- 
ter, which was even more extensive that day than in 
the first hunt. The attack was made as before, for the 
buffalo had moved but a short distance. They were 
attacked on each side, and the men killed the choicer 
animals until they had all the meat that could be 
carried away and all the skins needed — the hides of 
the shedding season being useless for robes. The 
slaughter had been awful but not wanton, and I was 
impressed with the fact then that the Indian displays 
more restraint in hunting, even though his desire to 
kill makes his blood boil, than the white man. I never 
have known an Indian to kill a game animal that he 
did not require for his needs. And I have known few 
white hunters to stop while there was game to kill. The 
hunt stopped when five thousand buffalo had been 
slain. 

The hunters removed the hump and other tender 
[114] 



BUFFALO HUNT AT STANDING ROCK 

morsels from the carcasses, quartered the beeves for 
transport, and brought the meat in on wagons and 
travois to the camp, which had been made on Hidden 
Wood Creek, where there was plenty of good water, 
which camp remained there for the jerking of the meat 
and making of pemmican. The second day I lost my 
saddle-horse, a herd of four or five hundred buffalo 
stampeding directly through the camp and carrying off 
five horses, including mine, which were out grazing. 
The animal was not retaken then, remaining with the 
buffalo until the following fall, when a hunting party 
identified the beast, captured it after "creasing" it — 
shooting it through the skin at the top of the neck, 
just forward of the shoulder. 

The night of the first butchering there was such a 
feast as had not been held at Standing Rock for many 
years. Mighty hunters sat down with mighty appe- 
tites to satisfy, and ate until I stood fairly astonished 
at the capacity of their stomachs for solid food. And 
they told stories of the hunt — stories that did not 
need corroboration. 

Crazy Walking, whom in memory of that day I 
made a captain of police later. Standing Soldier, 
Henry Agard, and Frank Gates, the last two mixed 
bloods, had each killed twenty-six buffalo ; Bull Head, 
who was killed eight years after in carrying out my 
order for the arrest of Sitting Bull, and who was cap- 
tain of the soldiers in that hunt, had a mighty bag; 
Shave Head, who died with Bull Head and who had 
severely disciplined one of the party the night before 
the hunt for an alleged offense against the discipline 
of the soldiers (of which he was really innocent). Shave 
Head too had meat for many days ; Black Bull — who 
[115] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

sits listening, a grinning old man, as I tell this story — 
was among the heroes in performance that day. But if 
I would tell the tale of great hunters I must enumerate 
the head men of the Sioux Nation. They were all in 
that hunt and at peace on the banks of the Hidden 
Wood Creek that night. Years after, in the trying 
times of the ghost-dancing, when Sitting Bull sought 
to arouse his people against the whites, there was bit- 
terness, enmity, and death ; but that night Hunkpapas, 
Blackfeet, Upper and Lower Yanktonais, and whites 
were friends in feasting as they are friends to-day, and 
I never visit my old home at Standing Rock but that 
some of them gather at my door and go over the story 
of the great buffalo hunt of 1882. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

How Custer and his Command rode to their Death at the Hands of 
the Indian Allies. 

I HAVE had so much to do, in the ordinary affairs of 
life at an Indian agency, with the men who fought 
Custer to the death at the battle of the Little Big 
Horn, and socially and officially with many of those 
who were members of the Seventh Horse on that 
disastrous day in June, 1876, when the flower of the 
American cavalry was shattered by the war-power of 
the Sioux Nation, that I have no compunctions to con- 
sider nor apologies to offer for telling the Indian side 
of that fight, which story is not a new one, except in 
the point of view. I knew very well Captain E. S. 
Godfrey, of the Seventh Cavalry, now brigadier gen- 
eral, retired, who wrote the article that is given the 
place in military history. I was even able to assist him 
to the extent of supplying him with the names of the 
Indians who were prominent in the battle. He has 
covered the whole bloody field with the exactitude of 
a man devoted to military science ; he knew — as I 
could not possibly know, except on hearsay — the dis- 
position of the troops that day. He has given to the 
world a very even-tempered and dispassionate story, 
which has been universally indorsed by persons fa- 
miliar with the campaign of 1876. The unfortunate 
circumstances that involved the action of some mem- 
[117] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

bers of Custer's command, and which led to such 
bitter criticism and comment for years after the bat- 
tle, are now being lost sight of, or talked about only 
when grizzled veterans, who were subalterns thirty 
years ago, get together to fight over their battles. 

To most people the Custer battle is a matter of his- 
tory, to be remembered because of the heroism and 
dash of the men who died on the field, but holding no 
interest of a living character. I have convictions as 
to the points in contention between the survivors of 
the Seventh Cavalry. From what leading Indians in 
the engagement have told me of the fight, I am of the 
opinion that if Custer's obvious plan of battle had been 
carried out, — if Reno had struck the upper end of 
the Sioux Camp when Custer struck the village at its 
lower end, — the event might have been changed ; 
and while the Custer force may not have been strong 
enough to defeat the Indians, there would at least 
have been no such disaster as that which overtook 
the leader of the cavalry and the men with him. I do 
not know that Major Reno, under his orders, could 
have done other than he did in making the attack as 
soon as he was within striking distance, but believe 
that, if he had gone to the support of Custer when the 
latter sent orders to Benteen to "come at once," — 
orders that might as well apply to Reno as Benteen, — 
it would have been impossible for the Indians to over- 
whelm the entire regiment as they did the five troops 
comprising Custer's immediate command. I am not 
at all fearful that this flat statement of a convic- 
tion acquired by many years of personal contact and 
friendly relations with the Indians who participated 
in the fight, and not from any prejudiced military 
[118] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

authority, will embroil me in a dispute. The matter 
admits of no dispute. 

The big figures in the fight, from the military point 
of view, were General George A. Custer, Lieutenant 
Colonel commanding the Seventh Cavalry, and Chief 
Gall of the Hunkpapa Sioux. There were others to 
dispute the supremacy of Gall, as Crow King, also a 
Hunkpapa, and Crazy Horse, who though an Oglala, 
had long affiliated with the Cheyennes. Sitting Bull 
was a factor only in that his immediate followers, who 
subsisted by the chase, were camped in an ideal game 
country, which brought a large body of the Sioux to- 
gether for the summer hunt, and their assemblage was 
effected in such manner that the military power of 
the United States had not the remotest idea of their 
great strength. I knew Custer personally but not well. 
Gall I knew intimately in all the circumstances of life 
— as well as one man can know another of alien race. 

General Custer was not the dashing, devil-may- 
care, hard-riding and fast-fighting mounted soldier 
that the romancers have made him out. He was a 
careful, painstaking man and officer, devoted to his 
profession of arms and properly appreciating the 
tools he had to work with. The dash that was sup- 
posed to be his principal characteristic was merely a 
part of the plan of a man who knows the essentials 
to success. He was not careless of consequences in 
any of the matters of life. He was a reserved and 
somewhat reticent man. He held the admiration of 
his officers and soldiers, not because he was their 
idol, one whom they might follow unthinkingly, but 
because they knew him to be a thorough soldier. He 
might go into an undertaking when he knew the 
[119] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

chances were against him, but he would not do it in a 
spirit of bravado. He guessed, nearer than any one 
else, the power of the Sioux, and he would undoubt- 
edly have accepted the offer of reinforcements for the 
Seventh, in the one battalion of the Second Cavalry 
that was offered him, but for the fact that recent 
events compelled him to the accomplishment of a 
work that would give him such a standing before the 
nation that the powers existing at that time would not 
dare to interfere further with his military career. He 
believed that the Seventh Cavalry could chastise the 
Indians as well without as with the assistance of any 
other organization, and he did not want to divide the 
credit if the campaign was successful. Under ordinary 
circumstances, if he had been in good standing, and 
free to act on his unprejudiced judgment, he would 
doubtless have taken all the forces he could control 
before going into the field against an unnumbered 
enemy. 

Custer was not in favor with General Grant, then 
President. An official report made by Custer had an 
important bearing upon the dealings of some persons 
closely and officially connected with the administra- 
tion, and the President was touched to the quick. 
With the Belknap affair threatening him with the 
annihilation of his hopes, he was stirred out of his 
usual habits, and he became enraged. Custer was sent 
for to report in Washington and explain. His explana- 
tion did not tend to ingratiate him with the President. 
He was kept in Washington in a state of uneasiness, 
while the command was being made ready for the 
expedition that was aimed to break the power of the 
hostile Indians of the West. He appealed to the Presi- 
[ 120 ] 




CHIEF GALL 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

deat as a soldier, and General Terry, then in com- 
mand of the Department of Dakota, made an appeal 
for him. It was only at the last moment that President 
Grant permitted Custer to be ordered to his regiment, 
and even then he was held in a subordinate position, 
effectually, for if he had not been in disfavor at Wash- 
ington it is reasonably certain that he would have had 
a larger part in the preparation for the expedition, and 
the guidance of it, than he did. He was given his com- 
mand as lieutenant colonel of the Seventh Regiment 
of Cavalry, Sturgis, its colonel, being on detached ser- 
vice. Thus it was that Custer went into the affair that 
culminated on the Little Big Horn. He had much to 
gain from the happy event of a desperate venture, and 
very little to lose. But he made his dispositions with 
great care, going to the — with him — unheard-of 
length of taking his officers into council and confer- 
ring with them when he thought he was within striking 
distance of the enemy. 

Gall was no more of a diplomat than Custer. He 
was a fighting man. He had fought his way to the 
chieftaincy of a people who recognized in a large de- 
gree the merit that goes with personal prowess and 
skill in battle. He had plenty of courage and dash, 
and he was gifted with the qualities that Sitting Bull, 
diplomat and medicine man, lacked entirely. He was 
a power in the council over which Sitting Bull domi- 
nated, although the latter was not a war-chief. It was 
the generalship of Gall that kept the strength of the 
Indians concealed from the white soldiers, in spite of 
the fact that the forces had been in conflict on June 17, 
preceding the Little Big Horn aJBFair, when Crazy 
Horse actually defeated General Crook. This was 
[121 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

before the union of the hostile forces, but it should 
have been sufficient indication of the strength of the 
Sioux allies. 

Gall kept his forces moving over a wide expanse of 
territory, though rarely getting far from his base in 
the neighborhood of the Little and Big Horns. How 
well he and his fellow tribesmen managed in conceal- 
ing their location and superior strength was demon- 
strated by the fact that, three days previous to the 
battle on the Little Big Horn, Custer announced his 
intention of following the hostiles even if the trail led 
to Nebraska or the agencies on the Missouri River. 
It was Gall who directed the repulse of the Reno 
force. It was Gall's knowledge of men and military 
affairs that led the Indians to leave Reno undisturbed 
while they were crushing Custer, he having so dis- 
posed his forces that Custer was completely sur- 
rounded and cut off when he reached the spot from 
which he had planned to strike the village of the 
hostiles. It was not until within an hour of the end 
that Custer came to know approximately the power 
of the enemy, — a fact that demonstrates military 
capacity of a high order in the leader of the opposing 
forces, considering the number of Indians in the field, 
the nature of the country, and the equipment of the 
white forces in scouts. Gall, Crow King, and Crazy 
Horse had plainly out-generaled the commanders of 
the three columns sent against them, in hiding their 
strength and eventually choosing the spot to give 
battle — and the greatest of the three war-chiefs was 
Gall. 

But Gall was an Indian with an Indian's limita- 
tions, and his soldiers savages, else it might not have 
[ 122 ] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

been necessary for anybody to aim criticisms at Reno. 
I never could understand why Gall did not press his 
advantage after annihilating the Custer detachment, 
and throw his whole strength against Reno's position. 
Gall never gave me any satisfactory reason; other 
Indians have told me that the people, having defeated 
the soldiers at very small cost to themselves, did not 
want to throw their lives away in forcing a position 
that was susceptible to defense and was defended 
against the weak attacks made on it during the even- 
ing after the Custer fight and the next morning. There 
is avast deal of independence in the Indian soldier, and 
the probabilities are that the warriors had had enough 
of blood considering the price they would have to pay 
for more scalps. It is also to be considered that the 
Sioux, though an excellent cavalry soldier in a dash, is 
not built on lines to make a sustained attack with the 
certainty of losses. Then the supreme authority was 
vested in a council of chiefs, and Sitting Bull domi- 
nated that council both before and after the battle. 

During the night of June 25 — the day of the battle 
— there was a celebration in the Sioux camp, a wild 
orgy of blood. There was no council ; nothing took 
place that could be called a deliberative meeting. 
Sitting Bull had made good his promise that a great 
defeat would be sustained by the whites ; he was not 
the sort of man to jeopardize the reputation he had 
established for making good medicine, and it was his 
business to get the people out of the locality as soon 
as he could, for he knew that General Terry and 
Colonel Gibbon would not be long in coming to the 
support of Custer, and he therefore encouraged the 
license of that night. Gall, supported by Crazy Horse, 
[123] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

directed what movement there was against Reno, but 
the warriors did not go into it with zest. Perhaps Gall 
failed in his authority. In any event, he never ex- 
plained to me why he did not follow up the advantage 
gained by the annihilation of Custer's squadron. 

The war which had its culmination in the Custer 
affair originated primarily in the need for giving the 
white man the privilege of mining in the Black Hills. 
Other excuses were made. It was said that it was 
necessary to get the Indians on reservations in order 
to permit travel through the country ; that they were 
hostiles and engaged in continuous warfare, — all of 
which was true enough. But under the Treaty of 1868, 
as I have pointed out elsewhere, the Indians of the 
Sioux nation were given the right to hunt and travel 
in the ceded country. There was no doubt about the 
language of the treaty. No attempt was made to get 
an amendment of this treaty, and neither is there any 
doubt that its provisions were ignored in other re- 
spects. The Indians believed themselves to be abso- 
lute owners of the land, and their right to it was undis- 
puted, subject to the right of eminent domain in the 
United States ; but this did not deter the government 
from sending an expedition into the Black Hills in 
1874. On the report of that expedition being made 
public, there was a rush of white men into the Hills, 
as there must have been in view of the official state- 
ment that the country was rich in gold. The white 
man would not stay out and the Indian must be gotten 
out. Of course there was no use quarreling with this 
condition. The War Department was active in getting 
the Indians under control, and in the early winter of 
1875-76, notice was sent out through the various 
[ 124] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

Sioux agencies for the wandering Sioux to come in to 
their respective agencies or be left in a position where 
they would be treated as hostiles. Some of the Indians 
may have gotten word of the purpose of the gov- 
ernnient, but most of them claimed entire ignorance 
of the order. Sitting Bull, who was undoubtedly the 
dominating spirit of all the hostiles then in the field, 
paid no attention to the affair whatever, except to 
solicit the numerous members of the bands who left 
the agencies to join his camp. Sitting Bull was thus 
organizing a force for what he thought would result in 
a war that would check the advance of the whites in the 
northwest and give him supreme and potent authority. 

Lieutenant General Sheridan directed the move- 
ments to capture and bring in the Indians. He judged 
that a winter campaign, started when the Indians were 
still suffering from the effects of short commons in the 
winter, would be the easiest means of rounding them 
up. 

In February it was arranged that Custer was to go 
after Sitting Bull with cavalry, while General Crook 
was to take care of the capture of Crazy Horse and 
his followers. The weather was worse as spring ap- 
proached than it had been during the early winter, 
and it was impossible for troops from the Missouri 
River to take the field. Crook went in from the south 
after Crazy Horse, who was known to be somewhere 
in the Powder River country. He met the Sioux and 
Cheyennes, and in the fight that ensued he came off 
with what was oflScially described as a "barren vic- 
tory." As a matter of fact, it was a defeat. Then it 
was determined to let the campaign stand until spring 
opened. 

[ 125] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

In the meantime Custer had gotten into trouble at 
court, so that, when the campaign opened, he was not 
given an independent command but was attached to 
the column under General Terry which marched from 
Fort Lincoln, May 17. The Indians were somewhere 
in a wide range of country, their location and strength 
being both unknown. Terry marched from the east. 
Crook from the south, leaving Fort Fetterman May 
29, while Gibbon went into the hostile country from 
the west. So far as the battle of the Little Big Horn 
is concerned. Gibbon and Crook may be eliminated. 
Terry met Custer at the mouth of the Rosebud, where 
Gibbon joined them. So little did they know of what 
was going on that the defeat of General Crook five 
days previously had not been heard of, nor did Terry 
know anything of the movements of Crook for three 
weeks afterward. Major Reno had been on a scout 
and found the trail of a large party of Indians leading 
up the Rosebud River. His scouts thought there might 
be three hundred and fifty lodges in the party. On the 
day that Reno's scouts discovered the trail, Crook 
was engaged in fighting the Indians only forty miles 
away. 

On June 22 Terry gave Custer his final orders, and 
the cavalry command, about six hundred strong, with 
a pack-train and a party of Ree and Crow scouts, 
marched out. The night before the command started 
on the march Terry, Gibbon, and Custer had a coun- 
cil on board the supply steamboat, the Far West, 
commanded by Captain Grant Marsh. Grant Marsh 
was then, as he is still, one of the figures in the navi- 
gation of the treacherous and shifty channels of the 
Missouri and its main arteries. They used to say of 
[126] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

him that he could navigate a steamboat on dew, and 
he is still navigating the Missouri north of Bismarck. 
That council was not a very cheerful affair, for, al- 
though there was no knowledge of disaster, still the 
oflBcers did not know the strength or whereabouts of 
the Indians. No one believed that the hostiles were 
nearly as numerous as they were. General Terry, 
who was an excellent soldier, had little personal know- 
ledge of Indian warfare or the people, and did not 
think they were in very great strength. Custer, basing 
his opinion on the report brought in by Reno, thought 
there were certainly a thousand warriors in the hostile 
camp and possibly one thousand five hundred. His 
figures were higher than those of anybody else; but 
he would have estimated the enemy at eight hundred 
if he had depended on the information that was in the 
hands of the commanding ojfficers. How far they all 
were from the fact was to be demonstrated in awful 
fashion before many days. 

The command left the camp with some show of 
military pomp, the cavalry being reviewed by Terry, 
Gibbon, and Custer as it marched out. The trail lay 
up the Rosebud, and the march was uneventful, ex- 
cept that Custer appeared to be strangely depressed 
and departed from his customary method of doing 
things without consulting his officers. On two occa- 
sions he had officers' call sounded, and each time he 
was abstracted, and almost genial in responding to re- 
marks made to him. He took precautions to provide 
for the secrecy and caution of the advance, that were 
remarkable considering the country and his usual 
tactics; and he hung anxiously on the expression of 
opinions by men to whom he would ordinarily have 
[127] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

paid no attention. When the scouts had approxi- 
mately located the hostiles on the Little Big Horn and 
it was known that a conflict was impending, he was 
undoubtedly impressed by the attitude, rather than by 
the reports, of the Ree and Crow scouts. These In- 
dian scouts did not see the main body of the hostiles, 
but judging from the evidences they saw along the 
trail, concluded that a large number of Indians had 
passed over it. The encampment, however, of the 
one large force strung along the trail with the several 
bands widely separated, was mistaken for a succes- 
sion of camps of an ordinary hunting-party. 

The scouts were not anxious for a fight. That ap- 
pears certain. They did not think the cavalry force 
was suflBcient to cope with the Sioux. General God- 
frey says that "Mitch" Bouyer, the guide and Crow 
interpreter, asked him how many Indians they ex- 
pected to find, and being told between a thousand and 
fifteen hundred, asked if he thought the command 
could whip that many. Godfrey said, "Yes." Bouyer 

said, " Well, you can bet you are going to have a of 

a big fight." The Rees were depressed up to the last. 
They were inactive during a day or two before the 
battle. They and their people had had much experi- 
ence of Sioux warfare and had suffered a great deal at 
the hands of the very people they were looking for. 
They made medicine continually, and before the fight 
they were all anointed by their medicine men and 
their prayer-dances were solemn and ominous. 

Custer was affected by the attitude of the scouts, 

although he declared, when an interpreter said the 

Indians believed there would be a two or three days' 

fight, that he guessed they could be taken care of in 

[128] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

one day; but his officers noticed that he smiled sadly 
when he made the comment. 

The trail was found to lead over the divide between 
the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn, and the march- 
ing was rapid, though not of a nature to exhaust the 
troops or horses, and during the night of the 24th of 
June a considerable distance was made; for it was 
generally understood that the Indians were acquainted 
with the presence of the troops, and rapid action was 
thought necessary. Even then the command had no 
knowledge of the location or number of the enemy, 
though the last halt was made only twelve miles from 
the Sioux village. 

Up to that morning it had been the intention of 
Custer to strike the camp early in the morning of the 
26th if he could get within striking distance. His 
knowledge of Indian warfare taught him that such 
would be the proper time for an attack, and it was a 
most unusual thing to attack Indians assembled in 
force in the daytime. Even if the general had had full 
and accurate knowledge of the number and disposi- 
tion of the Indians, he would not have chosen to at- 
tack in the middle of the day unless compelled to do 
so. If he had been fully advised, he certainly would 
not have divided his command, as he did when the last 
halt was made, or soon thereafter. It appears that an 
order for a division of the command was given after 
the start was made, though Benteen, with his battal- 
ion, was at once deployed to the left and front, in the 
general direction of the upper end of the Indian vil- 
lage. Reno's battalion, which had the van, kept on 
until it came upon a tepee containing the body of a 
dead Indian. Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull says in her 
[ 129 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

story that this was the body of Chief Circling Bear's 
brother, a man of some prominence, and that he was 
killed in a skirmish with the Crows a few days previ- 
ous, the Sioux believing they were engaged with Crows 
and Shoshones instead of with Crook. The Ree 
scouts with the Custer party set fire to the tepee. 

When Reno had gotten very close to the Little Big 
Horn, he received orders to press forward as fast as 
was prudent and charge the village, and the whole 
command would support him. Reno, acting on these 
orders, crossed the Little Big Horn and made ready 
for the charge. 

Custer went off somewhat to the right of the river 
and followed a ridge, which he held to until he took 
his last position at its extreme abrupt point, over- 
looking the valley of the Little Big Horn. Benteen 
had moved out to the left, but the nature of the coun- 
try forced him to the right, and he eventually struck 
Reno's trail and came up with the major's command, 
after the latter had retreated across the Little Big 
Horn, and taken position on the hill east of the river, 
where the seven troops practically remained until 
Terry and Gibbon came up from the north on the 
27th. 

In the Indian village on the west bank of the 
Greasy Grass, as the Indians call the Little Big Horn, 
ten thousand or more Sioux, male and female, in- 
cluding their allies, the Cheyennes, and a few — not 
many — Arapahoes, were awaiting the attack from 
the lower end of the camp, they having for more than 
an hour seen Custer's column marching along the 
ridge in that direction. The village was concentrated 
beyond the usual conditions in a large gathering of 
[130] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

bands — the only evidence of anticipation of warfare. 
It had not been located with a view to defending it 
from attack. Gall told me that its location had not 
been decided upon in advance. It had no military 
advantage, except that it was located on the west side 
of a river that was easily fordable in a good many 
places and not particularly difficult of access. It was 
proven by demonstration that the encampment was 
exposed to attack from either end, and if the chiefs 
had been on the defensive, or thought that the sol- 
diers might approach in force from the east and suc- 
ceed in crossing the river, they certainly would not 
have left their village, situated along the river for a 
distance of over three miles, so open to easy attack. 

The leading Indians in the affair told me, when 
talking with them in reference to the conflict, that 
they had great confidence in their numerical strength. 
They supposed that the soldiers knew how strong 
they were. They were not inviting attack — not " spoil- 
ing for a fight." What they wanted, as a whole, was 
to be left alone to hunt the game with which the 
country abounded ; that it was in no sense a war- 
party except in the capacity and readiness of the 
members to fight when called upon. The fact that 
the camp was full of women and children is evidence 
of this attitude of the Indians, and the writers who 
have said that there were fewer than the ordinary 
number of non-combatants in the camp of a hunting- 
party are in error. When the Indians left the agencies 
to join Sitting Bull, they took their families with them. 
They expected and desired to keep away from the 
soldiery. Of course, when the number of the people 
who had joined Sitting Bull had grown so great, the 
[131] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

medicine chief became less anxious to avoid the gage 
of battle. He felt strong in numbers, and the war- 
chiefs had a profound sense of their ability to give a 
good account of themselves against any body of troops 
that might be sent against them. 

They had been in camp on the Greasy Grass for 
some days. They had met and administered a sharp 
check to Crook on the Rosebud during the previous 
week. They had had a brush with a party sent out 
by Crook, under command of Lieutenant Sibley, 
which was accompanied by John F. Finnerty of the 
Chicago "Times," and the detachment had narrowly 
escaped annihilation. They were rich in provisions, 
for the country was full of buffalo, and they had 
plenty of ammunition. Their condition was ideal for 
the Indian of that or any other day. 

The great camp w^as given up to rejoicing. Every 
night there were dances, — social affairs according to 
Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull, — but it is not to be doubted 
that the war-dance figured on the programme. Before 
they met with Crook they had halted for a sun-dance 
and the sun-dance lodge had been found by Custer; 
in it was hanging the scalp of a white man that had 
been forgotten, or left in defiance of any troops that 
might happen along. 

Hunting-parties kept coming and going in the di- 
rection of the Big Horn Mountains. The women and 
children covered the prairie hunting for tipsina (In- 
dian turnips), and the camp was teeming with the life 
of a great Indian village, — the largest that had con- 
gregated in freedom in several years, in that country 
at least. 

In the councils was the flower of the hostiles of the 
[ 132 ] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

Sioux nation. They may be called hostiles for pur- 
poses of identification, as they were designated that 
way in the official reports, though they were dubbed 
that before any overt acts had been committed. Sit- 
ting Bull was the principal chief of the party, which 
was remarkable from the fact that he was not a war- 
chief. He had a great reputation on account of his 
medicine, and the people at the agencies had come 
to believe that his medicine was invincible because 
he remained off the reservation. This reputation at- 
tracted to his camp hundreds of people who had no 
other desire than to hunt the buffalo. With his bands 
they thought the hunting might be safely undertaken, 
and with the certainty of success. In order to ensure 
themselves a welcome with him, they were in the 
habit of taking presents to Sitting Bull, and he used 
these presents to great advantage in maintaining his 
popularity with the chiefs. He made medicine con- 
tinually, and had been prophesying for some time 
that the Sioux would inflict a great defeat on the whites 
somewhere on or near the Big Horn rivers. 

Gall, of the Hunkpapas, was the principal of the 
war-chiefs, though Crow King, of the same band, was 
highly regarded by his people. Gall was in the prime 
of life, brave as a lion, strong in council and a natural 
leader of men. Later on, both of these chiefs had 
nothing but contempt for Sitting Bull. I know not 
how it was then, but they were probably afraid of 
his medicine and content to leave him alone. Crazy 
Horse, a fierce and warlike man, was an Oglala Sioux 
who had been affiliated with the Northern Cheyennes 
for many years, and had one of their women as a wife. 
He was killed, bayoneted by a soldier, while resisting 
[ 133] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

being put in the guardhouse the next year, at Camp 
Robinson, Nebraska. The Minniconjous were under 
the leadership of Lame Deer, who was killed on Lame 
Deer Creek, Montana, some time later, in a fight with 
the soldiers under General Miles. He was succeeded 
by Hump, who was also a prominent figure in the 
camp on the Little Big Horn. Big Road was the chief 
man of the Oglalas in the camp. Black Moon of the 
Hunkpapas, He Dog of the Oglalas, and Two Moon 
of the Cheyennes were all notable in council and in 
the field. They spoke for and led a fighting force, in- 
cluding boys above fourteen years of age, that was not 
less than twenty-five hundred strong. The distribu- 
tion of the bands after the fight, their straggling return 
to the agencies, and their method of surrendering in 
small parties, made it difficult to tell how many people 
were in the camp on the Little Big Horn. The Indians 
themselves, even Gall, who was very intelligent and 
truthful, could not tell how many warriors there were. 
The fact that they numbered twice as many as Custer 
expected to find, taking his outside figures, shows 
how well they had hidden their strength from the 
white and red scouts. It has frequently been said that 
there were many white men in the camp. This is not 
true. The Sioux were fought as Indians. If they had 
been handled as white men are handled in battle, the 
opposing forces aligned for the fight, the outcome 
would have been different. 

With the chiefs who dominated in the hostile camp 
at that time I had afterwards a long and — except 
in the case of Sitting Bull — a friendly and rather 
intimate acquaintance. Gall and Crow King, intel- 
ligent men who saw that the day of the Indian was 
[ 134 ] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

past, retained the confidence of their people in peace 
as they had in war, and they, with some of the others, 
did much to bring the bands under their influence to 
a realizing sense of the necessity for accommodating 
themselves to the ways of the whites. From these men 
and many others of less prominence I had the story of 
the Custer battle and the disposition of their people. 
Therefore I tell the story of the affair as it undoubt- 
edly took place, allowing no leeway for the Indian's 
ignorance of time and distance, and correcting by the 
competent evidence of such oflScers as were present, 
with whom I afterwards lived in the close companion- 
ship of an agency located next door to a military post, 
the errors incidental to the Indian relation. A single 
relation is not relied upon. It could not be, as is shown 
in the story of Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull, who is one of 
the most intelligent women of her nation and very 
truthful. She makes obvious errors in time and dis- 
tance. But the story of the battle and the events 
preceding it have been told me by so many tongues, 
and under such widely different circumstances, that I 
glean the facts from a wide field of fancy and personal 
exploits. As to the process of events on the 25th of 
June, 1876, the disposition of the forces and the actual 
fighting. Gall and other chiefs told the story to me 
with great attention to detail. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

{Continued) 

Describing the Battle Array of the Indians and how Custer was over- 
whelmed by Numbers. 

THE Indian village was strung along the west bank 
of the Little Big Horn for a distance of between 
three and four miles, reckoning from the camp 
of the Blackfeet Sioux at the upper end of the village, 
where Reno made his attack, to the outermost tepees 
of the Cheyennes, extending to a point just opposite to, 
or perhaps a little below, the hill upon which Custer 
made his stand. That the camp was not pitched in 
accordance with the tribal custom when on the war- 
path or in a country in which an attack might be an- 
ticipated, was evidenced by the fact that the village had 
been laid out without regard to the rule which gave the 
Hunkpapas their hereditary privilege of camping on 
the outer edge and holding the place giving access to 
the village. The Blackfeet band, which was not nu- 
merously represented, had, as I have said, the upper 
end of the village. Next below them the Hunkpapas 
were located, and they were in great strength. Mrs. 
Spotted Horn Bull said there were four hundred 
lodges of them, but in this she was obviously mistaken. 
Next them were the Minniconjous ; then the Oglalas ; 
then, some distance back from the river, the Brules ; 
the Sans Arcs camped just below on the river, and the 
[ 136] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

Cheyennes held the place at the lower end of the 
encampment. Out to the west and southwest an im- 
mense herd of ponies grazed, for the hostiles were well 
mounted then. The river could be forded at both the 
upper and lower ends of the camp, and was not diffi- 
cult at any other point except that the banks were soft 
and not easily scaled. A dismounted man might cross 
in many places. After the commencement of the fight, 
Gall followed Reno across at the upper end of the vil- 
lage. Crazy Horse with the Cheyennes and most of 
the Sioux forded below. The women crossed where 
they pleased, and took a hand while the battle was in 
progress by stampeding the horses. 

The morning of the battle the Indians knew where 
Custer was and what his strength was. They knew 
that there was only one column within striking dis- 
tance, and that they had the soldiers greatly out- 
numbered ; and strong in numbers, and with the as- 
surance given them by Sitting Bull, they prepared 
themselves to meet the attack. It had been decided 
the previous night that, if the troops attacked the vil- 
lage, the Indians would fight, but that they would not 
go far from their camp to intercept the soldiers. There 
was much excitement in camp on the morning of the 
beautiful day when Custer led his men into the jaws 
of death, and every preparation for a hurried flitting 
had been made by the women in case the fight had 
gone against the Indians. No tepees were struck, 
nor were the ponies, other than those used as mounts 
by the Indians, brought in; but the camp equipage 
had been bundled up, a precaution indicating some 
fear of the result ; this, however, would be done by 
the women in the face of any important event, even 
[137] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

though the men were quite indifferent in their confi- 
dence. 

The location of the Hunkpapa band, with the few 
Blackfeet tepees at that end of the village which lay 
up the river, was due to the fact that Gall assumed 
that if an attack was made it would be at that point. 
The chief would choose for himself the most exposed 
place. But when the Sioux first saw the column ad- 
vancing, it was evident to them that Custer intended 
striking the lower end of the village. They were ig- 
norant of the fact that a considerable portion of the 
command had been detached, and that Custer had 
only five troops with him on the ridge. The Indians 
have always maintained that they were ignorant of the 
approach of Reno until he was within so short a dis- 
tance that, if he had rushed his troops into the upper 
end of the village, he could not have failed of throwing 
the encampment into disorder and doing much dam- 
age before he could have been repulsed. This state- 
ment is in contravention of the theory of the military 
authorities, — or some of them, — but it is undoubt- 
edly true. There was no organized opposition to 
Reno's advance until he was so close that he might 
have been among the tepees had he charged as or- 
dered by Custer. Reno was under cover from the 
time he left Custer until after he had crossed the river, 
and the great mass of the Indians were congregated 
at the lower end of the village near the Cheyenne 
camp, where they expected the approaching column 
to attack. 

Soon after detaching Reno's battalion, Custer 
reached the eastern end of the long, high ridge, which 
was in full view of the Indians for a distance of quite 
[ 138] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

six miles. When Reno crossed the Little Big Horn 
and formed on the side of the river occupied by the 
Indian encampment, he was nearly two miles from 
the nearest tepees. His course lay straight across the 
bottom, and was protected from the sight of the people 
in the village by the fringe of timber just outside the 
Blackfeet tepees. He advanced without hindrance 
and with some speed to the timber, or very close to it, 
without seeing any considerable number of Indians. 

Some straggling Indians reconnoitring the out- 
skirts of the village had seen Reno's column and sig- 
naled the camp that soldiers were approaching. The 
Indians of the main camp supposed that the signs 
made that soldiers were coming had reference to the 
Custer column, which the warriors at the lower end 
of the camp had been watching for some time, and no 
attention was paid to this signaling until some young 
men rode into the village and announced the approach 
of another body of troops. When the position was 
made clear, and a body of warriors had ridden pell- 
mell through the camp from the lower end of the vil- 
lage, a distance of fully three miles, Reno had halted 
at the low bench bordering a second elevation of the 
valley, dismounted his command, and begun firing at 
the scattered Indians. The rattling of bullets through 
the tepee poles of the Hunkpapa and Blackfeet was 
the first warning the Indians really had of Reno's 
approach. That was the psychological moment. If 
Reno had charged the village then he might have de- 
stroyed a considerable portion of it. There was little 
hindrance to his advance, but he sat supine until the 
Indians led by Gall appeared before him in consider- 
able force. The Ree scouts held the left of the Reno 
[139] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

command. At them Gall delivered a charge, and they 
turned and fled, not stopping altogether until they 
were comfortably quartered at the supply camp on the 
Yellowstone, fully one hundred miles from the battle- 
field. Reno moved his command over to the right, 
abandoning the forward movement, took a position in 
a fringe of timber, and waited — for what ? 

If Reno had known it, his sudden attack had struck 
something very like terror to the people in the village, 
particularly the upper end of the camp; and by the 
same token, his first shots, ineffective as they were, 
riddled the tepee poles of one of the lodges of the 
great man of the camp and eliminated him as a factor 
in the day's proceedings. For a long time after the 
fight it was supposed that Sitting Bull had had some 
part in directing it or giving the fighting men the 
moral support of his presence. As a matter of fact 
Sitting Bull headed a stampede, which might have 
become very general if Reno had followed up his 
advantage. 

Sitting Bull had two tepees, containing his family 
and effects, in the Hunkpapa camp. All the previous 
evening he had been making medicine and had suc- 
ceeded in convincing the war-chiefs and warriors that 
they were due to win a great fight, and he was in 
great feather the previous night. That morning, when 
the troops were found to be approaching, Sitting Bull 
betook himself to his tepee. He had with him two 
wives and several children and a great deal of house- 
hold wealth for a nomad — for he had been in con- 
stant receipt of presents for many months from the 
people coming from the several Sioux agencies to join 
him. These household impedimenta were evidence of 
[ 140 ] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

his state, but could be discarded in case of a sudden 
flight. 

I have contended always that Sitting Bull was a 
physical coward. I know it from personal knowledge, 
also from various incidents related of him, and from 
the attitude of contempt held toward him by the war- 
chiefs. But his medicine was great. 

That morning he had informed the people that he 
would remain in his camp and make medicine. There 
were very few, if any, men in that portion of the camp 
with him when Reno's bullets rattled through the 
tepee poles. The surprise created a panic in the heart, 
never very valorous, of Sitting Bull. He explained 
afterwards that his capture would mean the loss of 
his medicine to the Sioux, and he did not want to 
take any chances when the soldiers rushed into the 
camp, as he expected they would when the firing be- 
gan. His ponies were close at hand, and the medicine 
man got his women and children together and made 
straight for the hills to the southwest. In the hurry of 
the flitting one of his twin boys was lost, but that did 
not halt the doughty medicine-maker. He heard be- 
hind him the practically continuous gunfire, and kept 
on going. He marched for eight or ten miles without 
stopping, and was still going when couriers overtook 
him and announced the annihilation of the Custer 
command. It was late in the afternoon before he re- 
turned to the village, and he then arrogantly claimed 
all the honor for the victory gained, accounting for his 
absence from the field during the engagement with the 
troops by announcing that he had been in the hills 
overlooking the battle-field, engaged in propitiating 
the evil spirits and invoking the gods of war ; and, as 
[141] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

I was told by Gall and other prominent chiefs of the 
Sioux, a majority of these over-credulous people ac- 
tually believed him, and those lacking sufficient faith 
to accept his statements absolutely, had no desire to 
investigate or license to question his assertions. 

While Sitting Bull was leaving the camp. Gall was 
collecting a force to attack Reno. Warriors were rid- 
ing up through the camp ; and the women were making 
all preparations to leave. The utmost confusion pre- 
vailed. Reno, with his troops dismounted in the fringe 
of timber, suffered no injury at the hands of the In- 
dians, or practically none. How long he remained 
there is a question. The Indians were not clear about 
it at all, and the military not very much clearer. Reno 
seems to have been inspired to get a position back 
across the river by the fact that a trooper was shot 
close beside him. It does not appear that he ordered 
a retreat then, but simply headed one and made with 
all speed for the Little Big Horn, which he fortunately 
struck in a fordable place. Of this movement more 
hereafter will be said, but the helter-skelter nature of 
it was revealed in a single incident. 

The trooper who had been shot close to where Reno 
was standing was mortally hurt. Dr. Porter, a con- 
tract surgeon, went to the assistance of the man. He 
saw that the wound must result fatally, and he gave 
the man a narcotic and made him as comfortable as 
possible. He had paid no attention to what was going 
on around him, and when he looked up from the shel- 
tered place where the man was lying, the troops were 
gone and the doctor saw mounted Indians rushing 
past him after the fleeing troops. Porter was not very 
well mounted, as he thought, having left his own horse 
[ 142] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

at the supply-camp, and having been given a mount 
from among the condemned cavalry horses, by the 
quartermaster. He mounted his horse, drove the 
spurs into the animal, lay low on his neck, dashed like 
mad through Indians and troopers, reaching the river 
with the first of the outfit, and got safely across. Of 
the three doctors with the command Porter was the 
only one not killed. 

This command made a desperate ride at the bluff 
on the east side of the river and attained its summit 
through a ravine. 

Soon after reaching a position on the hill, Reno was 
joined by Benteen, whose detour to the southwest had 
been ineffective and who had not yet been under fire. 
Some officers wanted to take their troops out to where 
firing was heard, and where Custer was undoubtedly 
engaged, but Reno held the hill. It may have been 
too late when Benteen came up to do Custer any good, 
for the last order sent by Custer, written by his adju- 
tant, Lieutenant Cook, directed Benteen to bring up 
the packs at once. Custer had undoubtedly seen the 
greater portion of the village when he issued the order. 
He sent it to Benteen, thinking that he still had an 
independent command, and that Reno was attack- 
ing the upper end of the village. Cook wrote : " Ben- 
teen, come on. Big Village. Be quick. Bring packs. 
P. S. Bring packs." The insistence of the order to 
bring packs was caused by the necessity for having 
the ammunition-mules. Moreover Custer had seen 
enough of the village to know that he would need Ben- 
teen's force. But Benteen had joined Reno. If both 
forces had been moved out — but that is speculation 
and to be avoided. The military experts have been all 
[143] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

over that field. As it was, the larger half of the entire 
regiment remained on the hill, by no means out of 
danger, but certainly not where Custer expected it 
would be, while the commanding oflScer and the 
smaller moiety of the command were being, or had 
been, done to death. 

When Reno left the column with his battalion and 
advanced to the crossing of the river, Custer went on 
along the trail for a short distance, then turned 
slightly to the right and struck the ridge. What he 
saw or heard there doubtless convinced him that he 
should proceed on and attack the village lower down. 
That he intended from the beginning of this march 
along the ridge to go directly to the lower end of the 
village, is demonstrated by the fact that he never 
swerved from this course. His movements and the 
obstacles he encountered up to the end are known 
only on the relation of the Indians who were opposing 
him. The things that were done on the battle-field, 
after the fight, made the affair a delicate subject for 
the Indians to discuss. They talked to me more freely 
and frequently than to any other white man whom I 
know, but it was not easy to hold them to a description 
of what transpired. For many years they had the im- 
pression that they were being examined for the pur- 
pose of singling out men for punishment. Gall, who 
was not concerned in the atrocities that made the 
battle-field the horror that it was, was diflSdent in 
talking of the matter. In spite of his self-possession 
and courage, he was shy of the subject, except in talk- 
ing of the affair broadly. He and the other men of his 
class knew that the amnesty promised at their sur- 
rendering in small parties covered all the events of 
[ 144] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

the battle, but they did not go into details in talking 
of the affair. It is probable that a man like Gall, act- 
ing under the tremendous excitement into which an 
Indian would certainly work himself during a fight, 
would not be observing the movements of the enemy 
in the hurry of getting his warriors into position to 
intercept the advancing column. The last march and 
stand of Custer is therefore gathered from many 
sources and was told piecemeal. 

When the general saw the village first, he saw only a 
part of it. Even before he had his first view of it. Iron 
Cedar had carried the word to Gall, who was pursu- 
ing Reno, that the larger force was approaching the 
lower end of the village and he was needed there. It 
was about this time that Custer's last order was issued 
and given to a trumpeter to be carried to Benteen. 
This probably occurred at about one o'clock — reck- 
oning with the Indian's idea of time and comparing it 
with the statement that the message reached Benteen 
after he joined Reno at 2.30. The Indians with Gall 
knew nothing of Benteen's command. 

The position of Custer was not a commanding one. 
He was on the second ridge from the river ; closer to 
the stream there was another ridge, somewhat lower, 
broken in spots, but interfering with a full view of the 
village. Custer must have been convinced that the 
village was clustered well around that portion which 
he saw, the lower end, and that Reno would make 
good his order to charge and thus throw the village 
into confusion ; but he must have seen that no attempt 
was yet being made by the Indians to get away, and 
that out to the south and west the herd of ponies 
grazed undisturbed. 

[ 145 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

It was soon after Custer had left Reno that the 
Indians first caught sight of his column. He struck 
the ridge at a distance of about six miles from the 
lower end of the village, and was never out of sight of 
the Indians during the whole of the march to the end. 
Gall had all of his warriors massed at the lower end 
of the village, near the Cheyenne camp. The entire 
camp was engaged in watching the advance. Custer 
probably took the ridge as a means of announcing 
his coming and to divert attention from the attack 
of Reno. I have frequently traveled over the trail of 
Custer's march from the mouth of the Rosebud to 
the Little Big Horn battle-field, and am quite familiar 
with the country through which it passes, the distance 
being about one hundred miles, and have gone over 
the battle-field many times. The broken ground be- 
tween the ridge and the river hid, as I have said, a 
great portion of the village. While the general and his 
squadron were as obvious to the Indians as though 
their band was in the lead playing Garryowen, — the 
battle-song of the Seventh Cavalry, — Reno's ap- 
proach was entirely hidden. He could be discovered 
only when he was close enough to attack, and it is 
probably quite true that, as Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull 
says in her narration, the first knowledge the Indians 
had of the approach of Reno was when his rifle-shots 
rattled through the tepee poles of the Blackfeet. This 
exhibition of his column to the gaze of the Indians 
may have been an afterthought on the part of Gen- 
eral Custer, for it does not appear that he expected 
Reno to strike the village as soon as he did. He proba- 
bly meant, when he sent word to Reno to charge the 
village and the whole outfit would support him, that 
[146] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

he would strike the other end at the same time. Im- 
mediately after sending the order he appeared on 
the ridge, expecting that Reno would ride into and 
through the practically unprotected upper end of the 
encampment, throwing the Indians into a panic, 
which would permit him to cross and attack from the 
lower end. 

Gall divined what the plan was instantly when Reno 
began firing, before he was within striking distance. 
The Indians' ponies were in the best condition, and 
Gall took a considerable number of warriors through 
the village to the upper end, when word had been 
brought to him of the approach of another enemy. 
Crazy Horse and the great mass of the Indians were 
left near the Cheyenne camp. When Gall reached 
the upper end of the village, Reno had come to a pause. 
The few Indians who had opposed had practically 
stopped him. Gall's people turned his left flank, and 
instead of closing up and charging, Reno fell back to 
the fringe of timber, where he was practically out of 
the way of harm, and stood still. Gall told me that 
he was in a hurry to get back to the lower ford, but 
saw no way of pressing the fighting with Reno, con- 
sidering his force, and that he would have been com- 
pelled to send for a larger force if Reno had not played 
his cards for him by starting the retreat to the river. 
Gall turned this retreat into a rout, doing what execu- 
tion he could, and the cavalry went across the river 
under a fire that killed many without harming the 
enemy. Lieutenant Mcintosh was killed at some 
distance from the river, in the retreat; Lieutenant 
Hodgson, who was wounded while crossing the river, 
saved himself from death at the time by clinging to 
[147] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the stirrup of a trooper, and reached shore only to be 
killed by an Indian bullet. Dr. De Wolf was killed 
while trying to climb a bluff near the river. Twenty- 
nine enlisted men were killed. No sooner was Reno's 
command driven across the river than Gall practically 
withdrew all of his people and rode at speed down 
through the village again. Some Indians remained to 
harass stragglers from the Reno command, but the 
principal body withdrew at once and spread the news 
through the village that the soldiers attacking at the 
upper end had all been killed. This is credited by 
some of the people to this day, who believe that Reno's 
command, holding the hill that night and the next 
day, was altogether another body of troops. 

Gall said that when he reached the lower end of 
the village Custer was still some distance off ; that his 
force was advancing irregularly, but the men did not 
straggle far. Perhaps Custer had come to understand 
the situation, — that Reno had been repulsed or had 
retreated, — in which event he undoubtedly looked 
for support from him from the rear. Possibly he be- 
lieved at this time that Reno had made good his in- 
structions and was charging the other end of the vil- 
lage. There is no doubt that he had observed much 
confusion in that part of the village into which he had 
been able to look. Assuredly he had heard the firing 
and had been speculating on the outcome. Whatever 
his attitude of mind, he did not waver in his advance. 
While his column was still silhouetted against the sky- 
line of the ridge. Crazy Horse with the Cheyennes 
crossed the river, and, under cover of the inner ridge, 
made their way into the ravine to the north and west 
of the ridge upon which Custer was advancing. Gall 
[148] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

threw many of his people across the river, the Hunk- 
papas, Minniconjous, Oglalas, Sans Arcs, and Brules 
crossing in a swarm, some being sheltered from the 
sight of Custer by the lower ridge, others making their 
way around the ravine. They were all hidden from 
the view of the command. Holding steadily to what 
appeared to be his original plan of attack, Custer 
swung his troops to the left from the ridge, and turned 
down to the river. As the men rode down into the 
bottom, the Indians saw that they were apprehensive, 
but they did not falter and they were well down to the 
stream before the Sioux showed themselves on that 
shore. Of course, the lower end of the village had been 
in sight occasionally for some time, but it was unlikely 
that Custer could have known that the Indians had 
crossed the river to meet him. 

With the first shot that was fired the truth undoubt- 
edly dawned upon Custer and his people that they had 
met a formidable force. The Indians rose up in front 
of them, and in very considerable numbers, and went 
directly to the attack. The soldiers retreated in- 
stantly ; the ridge behind and to the right of the troops 
— the extension of the elevation they had left to go 
into the bottoms — might afford the men a chance to 
defend themselves. The order to fall back was evi- 
dently given without hesitation, though it was appa- 
rent to the Indians that Custer was surprised, or as 
nearly taken by surprise as so alert an officer could be 
in going into that exposed position. The movement 
to the rear was executed with such precipitation as 
would be likely in a body confronted by an enemy 
showing great strength. 

It may be as well to say here, that the military ex- 
[ 149 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

perts who have builded a strategical structure on 
the foundation afforded by the graves that mark the 
Custer battle-field, are wrong in their deductions 
when they give with elaboration the movements or- 
dered by Custer after the first attack. There was 
no time for orders. Gall, Crow King, Black Moon, 
Crow, Bear's Cap, No Neck, and Kill Eagle — all 
of whom were in positions to see the entire field cov- 
ered by Custer's force, and who corroborated each 
other unboastingly — have told me that from the time 
of the first attack until the last man of Custer's com- 
mand died on the battle-field, not more time elapsed 
than would be necessary to walk from the spot where 
the conversation was held — at the Standing Rock 
agency office — to Antelope Creek, a mile distant. 
It might have been a half-hour altogether. Within 
that period all the defense possible was made, inclu- 
ding the movement from the bottom to the height, 
which was much less than a mile. 

In ordering the troops to fall back Custer did that 
which Gall had anticipated. While a considerable 
body of Indians followed and harassed the men in 
this movement, another even larger body was sent 
around the ravine to the rear of the position aimed at 
by Custer; and when the cavalrymen had attained 
the position from which the commander evidently 
thought he might hold the Indians, in the ultimate 
hope of succor from Reno or Ben teen, the elevation 
was surrounded to the west and north, while a con- 
siderable mass of the Sioux were advancing on what 
might be called the front of Custer's position. 

In this retreat from the river, which has not been 
figured upon by the military writers, except in denial, 
[ 150 1 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

a dozen or more troopers were killed; their bodies 
were found at intervals along the line of the backward 
movement, as indicated by the marble slabs which 
mark the spot where each dead trooper was foimd. 

When Custer reached the elevation, Keogh's and 
Calhoun's troops were halted and dismounted by 
command, or by the necessities of the action, and the 
horses left in the ravine. This gave these troops the 
left of the force when Custer had proceeded along 
the ridge and turned to face the Indians in sight on 
the ground covered in the retreat. Between Custer 
and Keogh, Smith's troop was extended in skirmish 
formation, a fact evidenced by the disposition of the 
bodies. Captain Tom Custer's and Captain Yates's 
troops, who fell in the group with General Custer, 
were farther along toward where the ridge ran out in 
a declivity which could not be easily negotiated by 
horsemen, and which made the command compara- 
tively safe from attack from that direction. This, 
then, was the position at the finish. The line was not 
a lengthy one, and the men were thickest at about 
the point where Custer fell. While the troops were 
getting into this position, they were fighting continu- 
ously, but the onslaught of the Indians did not take on 
its deathly and irresistible form until Gall, in carry- 
ing his men around the ravine to the north and east 
of the position, struck the cavalry horses — probably 
those held by the men of Keogh's and Calhoun's com- 
mands. The shouting and shooting incident to the 
stampeding of the horses was the signal for the attack 
on the troops from three sides of the ridge. 

The Indians rose up out of the ravine and rode at 
the devoted column. At this time Custer was well 
[151] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

out to the right of the command. In his death he was 
surrounded by three people of his house, and two 
relations by marriage. When he died, and at what 
period of the fight, is not known. Whether or not he 
saw his brother, Captain Tom Custer, die first will 
never be known. He might have known that his 
brother-in-law. Lieutenant Calhoun, had been killed 
at once in Gall's wild charge after the horses were 
stampeded. But the General, Tom and Boston, his 
brothers, "Artie Ried," his nephew. Captain Yates, 
Lieutenant Cook, his adjutant. Captain Lord, of the 
medical corps. Lieutenant Reilly, Kellogg, of the 
"New York Herald," and many others, died very 
close together. 

The Indians made no special attack on Custer or 
the people with him ; they had not identified the gen- 
eral. They knew him as Long Hair, this being the 
distinguishing personal mark of the man in the eyes 
of the Sioux. At the time of the battle he wore his hair 
short, and there was nothing about him to distinguish 
him from the other oflScers, so far as the Indians were 
concerned. 

The stand of the troopers was of the briefest dura- 
tion. When Gall gave the signal, the Indians rose 
up out of the ravines: the Cheyennes, led by Crazy 
Horse, the Hunkpapas, the Blackfeet, — the latter few 
in numbers, — the Minniconjous, with Lame Deer 
and Hump in the van, the Oglalas, with Big Road, 
the Sans Arcs and the Brules ; they came straight 
at the ridge, riding fiercely and swiftly, stayed by 
nothing, a red tide of death; and almost without 
pause they rode over the field, and the desperate 
shooting of the white men did not halt them for a mo- 
[ 152] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

ment. When the tide had passed, Custer and his men 
were reckoned with the dead. There was neither time 
nor opportunity for defense; personal gallantry and 
the desperate occasion may have given birth to heroes 
in that moment, but they died in the instant of their 
birth, and Custer's last stand was a bloody page in 
history. 

Out to the north and east three men had sought 
safety only to be shot down. The rest of the command, 
with the exception of Sergeant Butler, — whose body 
was found at some distance over toward Reno Hill, 
— died as they stood. Butler may have been engaged 
in trying to communicate with Reno, or he may have 
been trying to get through the line of red braves. 
About his body were many empty cartridge-shells, 
showing that he made a gallant defense at the last. 

The Indians participating in that affair have al- 
ways asserted, and still maintain with decided posi- 
tiveness, that the fight was of short duration and the 
Indian loss insignificant ; that the attack of the over- 
whelming number of Indians — enthused by their 
easy victory over Reno — was of such whirlwind force 
that the small groups of soldiers did not check the 
rush of their wild charge. The Indians claim that 
many of the soldiers were killed without being shot, 
some who were mounted being pulled off their horses 
and clubbed to death with stone-headed war-clubs, 
which most of the Indians carried in addition to their 
Winchesters. They also claim that the soldiers might 
as well have had their pockets full of stones to throw 
at the Indians in defending themselves, as the carbines 
and revolvers with which they were armed, they having 
no opportunity to use their firearms after the first vol- 
[153] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

ley ; and this statement of the Indians would appear 
to be borne out, in part at least, by the fact that some 
of the dead, when found by the burial detachment, 
were without gunshot wounds, and others with only 
slight flesh wounds, but all with their skulls broken 
in by blows inflicted with some blunt instrument. 

Gall told me that he would have gone at once to the 
attack of Reno when the fight on Custer Hill was over, 
if he could have controlled his warriors. As well try 
to stem the flood of the mighty Mississippi, he said, 
as to hold the wildly excited hundreds who dashed 
about on the ridge among the bodies of the slain. 
Some scores of horses that had lately been ridden by 
the white men, the most valuable booty for an Indian, 
were galloping about the country. These were spoil 
for the warriors, and they turned their attention at 
once to their capture. As the men left the field, the 
women and boys came on. The women carried stone 
clubs, little hatchets and knives ; the Sioux had no tom- 
ahawks. The ferocity with which they attacked the 
bodies of the dead makes a horrid detail of the aft'air 
that has been told more than once. Even the Indian 
boys rode or walked about over the field, shooting into 
the bodies of the slain — which would account for the 
firing heard continuously by the soldiers on Reno Hill 
long after all resistance had ceased on the part of 
Custer's people. The head men sought for Custer's 
body. They knew him only by his long hair, and they 
could find no body that might possibly be identified 
in that way. 

Custer wore his campaign dress of buckskin, and 
the usual insignia of his rank were missing. They 
found a man dressed in buckskin, and in the pockets 
[154] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

of the blouse they found parchment maps, from which 
they concluded that the body was that of the officer in 
command ; and their respect for the chief — always 
marked with the Sioux — impelled them to hold the 
body inviolate. The body was that of Custer, and it 
was not mutilated. The Indians insisted, in conver- 
sation with me, that many of the bodies were not 
mutilated ; that the wounds found were inflicted in the 
heat of battle. But they all knew that Custer and 
Keogh escaped the general fate of the fallen. Keogh 
escaped mutilation because he wore about his neck an 
Agnus Dei, an emblem of faith frequently worn by 
Catholics. In stripping the body the Indians found the 
Agnus Dei, and, regarding it as powerful medicine, 
they refrained from desecrating the body of the man 
who wore it. The uniforms were all stripped from the 
soldiers, and besides the booty taken in the form of 
arms and clothing, much money was got. The soldiers 
had been paid just before starting on the fatal expedi- 
tion, and all, or nearly all, had money. Many of the 
Indians did not know the value of the currency, but 
it was soon appropriated by those who knew its pur- 
chasing power. 

As soon as possible after the fight. Gall led his peo- 
ple away from the field and rode up the river to the 
position which had been held in absolute safety by 
Reno, while Custer's command was being wiped out 
of existence. I have been assured by many credible 
people among the Sioux that for at least an hour there 
was not an Indian left in front of Reno's position ; 
that he might have marched out uninterrupted. 

Ben teen joined Reno about or just about 2.30, no 
doubt. The military writers have covered the events 
[ 155 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

that took place within Reno's lines that afternoon, 
and the Indians as a whole could know nothing of 
what was going on there for some time, for they with- 
drew to go after what they considered bigger game, 
the cavalry horses. Gall seemed to have no appre- 
hension of a renewal of the attack on the upper end 
of the village. He had no very well-defined idea what 
had become of the force he had repulsed and driven 
across the Little Big Horn, except that it was on the 
hill. He knew positively that no part of this force had 
joined the troops he attacked on the ridge. He might 
have anticipated that this force would advance to the 
attack after the Custer command had been annihi- 
lated. In any event, he was anxious to get his people 
up to the attack and meet the other command. He 
and the other Indians knew that the command which 
had been repulsed and driven to the hill had been 
badly whipped; the Indians in the village believed 
that the troops had been destroyed utterly. Gall hur- 
ried, with all the men he could control, from the Cus- 
ter field of carnage to finish his awful work of destruc- 
tion, believing that the annihilation of the troops on 
Reno Hill would be an easy task. From the time the 
Indians disappeared from in front of the Reno position 
until they returned in force, an hour and a half or two 
hours had elapsed. During that time, or almost all of 
it, the troops on the hill could hear firing: first the 
firing incident to the engagement between the Indi- 
ans and Custer, and later the straggling shooting of the 
dead by Indians and boys on the field. The officers 
with Reno were anxious to get out and see what had 
become of Custer. They were not careful about talk- 
ing of the necessity for doing something. Captain 
[ 156] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

Weir and Lieutenant Edgerly of "D" troop, the latter 
now a brigadier general, had made an attempt to get 
out nearer to the position they supposed was held by 
Custer, but they were repulsed. 

Custer's force was destroyed about three o'clock. 
It was after four when Gall got his warriors started up 
the river to attack the Reno position, and it was 
nearly five when Major Reno ordered his force to move 
down toward the Custer position. They had not gone 
far when the Sioux came up to the attack. The troops 
had attained the high bluffs down the river from the 
original position when the Indians came into collision 
with them. French's and Weir's troops stood the brunt 
of the attack ; Godfrey had got into action. They all 
supposed it was the intention to occupy and control 
the heights, when they received word to fall back. 
The main command was already in retreat to the 
old position. The advanced troops got away with 
diflSculty and the Indians occupied the heights. Gall, 
seeing that the troops were wholly on the hill, sent his 
Indians around to the rear and surrounded the com- 
mand. All of the high points were occupied by the 
Indians and the command seemed to be doomed. 
There were Indians everywhere and they had secured 
a number of commanding positions from which they 
might — if they could have been held to the work — 
have destroyed Reno's force. 

But after seven o'clock the warriors began to leave. 
They were excited with the bloody work of the after- 
noon. They wanted to have a part in the carousing 
that would take place in the village. The event was 
too big an affair for an Indian to forego his share in the 
general rejoicing for the mere sake of getting more 
[157] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

scalps. By dark, only the more persistent of the Sioux 
were left in the positions they had taken. Reno's out- 
fit might have moved out without interference, but it 
might not have found so easily defensible a position 
after moving. Moreover, there was the doubt as to 
what had become of Custer. The Indians thought 
that the white men on the hill knew that the other 
command had been destroyed. They did not then 
and do not yet understand why Reno took to the hill 
in the first place or remained there so long afterwards. 
Gall said frankly that, if Reno had persisted in his 
attack upon the upper end of the village in the morn- 
ing, without dismounting his men, the event might 
have been different. If his attack, which was sudden, 
had been persevering, it would have kept the Indians 
busy trying to hold him in check, and Custer could 
then have attacked the lower end of the camp with 
only half the Indians to oppose him ; the village would 
have been thrown into confusion, and the outcome of 
the affair doubtful. 

While the troops on the hill lay expecting the worst, 
not knowing what had become of their commander 
and ignorant of the strength of the dusky foes with 
whom they peopled the adjacent heights, the Indians 
were, as told me by the leaders, holding high carnival 
in the village. Throughout the length of the encamp- 
ment fires had been built; each band had its own 
dance, but the warriors did not remain in their own 
bands, — they fraternized with others, going from 
dance to dance, recounting their exploits, and being 
hailed in proportion to the prominence they had won 
in the battle. They were drunken with blood and 
elated beyond any sort of limit. The shouts and 
[ 158 ] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

whoops of the dancers were carried on the night wind 
to the men on the hill, and they carried the discom- 
forting suggestion that on the next night their anni- 
hilation might give occasion for another orgy. 

The Indians slept no more that night than the white 
men; there was no council, but the war-chiefs pre- 
vailed on the warriors to return to the beleaguering of 
the troops on the hill, and before daylight the Indians 
were again firing into the position. 

The troops had dug trenches during the night, and 
the packs and dead horses were utilized for shelter. 
The Indian fire did very little execution, it appears, 
and there was little heart in the attack. The troops 
had been without water, except what they carried 
with them, up to the morning, and the Indians made 
it impossible for the men to get their canteens filled. 
Some few of the soldiers defied the hazard and got 
some water, but very little. 

Gall had sent out scouts, and the report had been 
brought in that the walking soldiers were coming. 
The report spread something very like consternation 
in the Indian camp, and preparations were made for 
getting away. The infantry inspired much more awe 
in the Sioux than the cavalry did, and neither Sitting 
Bull nor Gall nor any of the war-chiefs were inclined 
to give battle to the united forces they knew to be in 
the field. 

About noon the Indians got ready to break camp ; 
but this was done leisurely, and there were some dif- 
ferences of opinion as to what should be done about 
continuing the attack against the force on the hill. 
The independence of control of the warriors settled 
the matter, and no demonstration was made in force. 
[159] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

At one time when the Indians were pressing the com- 
mand threateningly, Benteen induced Reno to let him 
make a charge. It was attempted, but the fire of the 
Indians, from cover, was so heavy that the troops 
were forced to retreat. Soon after noon the Indians 
drew off; then, inspired by the spirit of some of the 
chiefs, they returned and poured a vicious fire into the 
trenches on the hill. Then they left, and after three 
o'clock none returned. Two hours before dark the 
Indians got under way. It was known to them that 
the fresh troops — Terry with Gibbon's command — 
would arrive, and the immense herds of ponies could 
only be moved slowly. They went reluctantly, but by 
sunset the camp was deserted, the Indians moving off 
to the west, and the affair on the Little Big Horn was 
a thing of the past. 

On and about the ridge where Custer made his last 
stand, two hundred and twelve of the flower of the 
Seventh Cavalry lay dead and unburied. Altogether 
two hundred and sixty-five of the original men of the 
command were killed ; fifty-two were wounded. The 
Indians lost twenty-two dead and many — how many 
no man knows — wounded. The dead and wounded 
were all carried away, with the exception of one In- 
dian who fell into the hands of Benteen 's men, being 
killed in an impudent attempt to count a coup on a 
soldier who had been shot almost within the cavalry's 
lines. 

And this is the story of the battle of the Little Big 
Horn. For many moons the story of that day, re- 
counted by the warriors who had a part in it, bolstered 
the fading hopes of the Indians, who in scattered and 
starving bands sought to avoid the inevitable capitu- 
[ 160 ] 



THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN 

lation to the white soldiers, who pursued them from 
that day in June until the last of them surrendered. 
For long it kept alive the influence of Sitting Bull. 
For years after the Indians had laid down their arms 
it was talked about around the camp-fires of the bands 
that had nothing left of the old life but the memory of 
the day when last the power of the Sioux nation was 
arrayed in its great strength and in successful oppo- 
sition to the march of the white man. 

On Inauguration Day, March 4, 1905, I was in 
Washington and viewed the great parade from a po- 
sition close to that occupied by a squadron of the 
Seventh Cavalry. When the Indian cadets from Car- 
lisle marched past the position of the Seventh, the 
school band struck up the stirring strain of Garry- 
owen, the tune played by Custer's old band when the 
Seventh went into battle. Among the Carlisle students 
were boys whose fathers had been in the forefront of 
the red swarm that came up out of the ravine and 
overwhelmed Custer that day in June of the centen- 
nial year. I thought of Custer's command, of the 
peaceful country about the Crow agency, and the line 
of railroad that stands a monument to the indisputable 
domination of the white man, and I was profoundly 
impressed by a sense of the fact that the men, red and 
white, who made history in the days when there was 
a frontier in this country had given way to another and 
happier people, living in better and happier times. 



CHAPTER X 

MRS. SPOTTED HORN BULL'S VIEW OF THE 
CUSTER TRAGEDY 

The Story of the Last Stand of Custer and his Men, as told by the 
Widow of a Chief of the Hunkpapa Sioux. 

IN the first place Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull was there 
— which is more than can be said for some of the 
other ladies and gentlemen who have told of the 
events of that dreadful day when Custer led his gallant 
fellows into the jaws of death and worse. She was not 
then carried on the rolls of the Indian Department as 
Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull. A more imaginative spon- 
sor than the Indian Agent had given her the more 
euphonious and, let us hope, more correctly descrip- 
tive appellation of Pte-San- Waste- Win. Twenty- 
eight years ago, when she first came to the agency at 
Standing Rock, when Spotted Horn Bull, who was 
killed with Sitting Bull, was still in the land of the liv- 
ing Dakotas, she was a strikingly good-looking Indian 
woman, and much esteemed by her neighbors for her 
intelligence and capacity. She had also the gift of elo- 
quence, rare in an Indian woman, and a fluency in 
language and readiness of gesture which placed her 
high in the esteem of her story-loving tribesmen. 

And many a big man among the Sioux had been 

content to hold his peace when Pte-San- Waste- Win 

raised her voice. Not that the voice was raucous or 

that Beautiful White Cow (the English rendition of 

[162] 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

her name) was a scold. I have heard a story that she 
on one occasion man-handled a big chief of the Sioux 
nation who she learned had maligned her, and that 
the man-handling followed his remark: "Woman, be 
silent; you have the mouth of a white man." And 
knowing Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull as I do, I have never 
doubted the verity of the incident so far as her attack 
was concerned. 

She is now a sturdy, upstanding woman of sixty to 
sixty-five years of age, born of the Hunkpapa Sioux, 
a band that has provided the nation with many of its 
noted men. She was handsome, according to the In- 
dian canons of taste, in her youth, and indeed I am not 
sure that the Indian taste in these matters might not 
well be accepted by some more advanced peoples. She 
was married in early youth to Spotted Horn Bull, a chief 
of his band and a man of prominence as a warrior 
and adviser, but no orator. She appears to have 
brought to the family the attributes in which her hus- 
band was lacking, for she sat in the council of the 
tribe — and I know of no other Indian woman of her 
nation who was so signally honored. Her voice was 
always listened to, for, in addition to her gift of elo- 
quence, she was a clear thinker, and could make effect- 
ive the ideas of her silent husband. Since she became 
a widow, and the Sioux no longer hold councils, her 
neighbors seek her advice in business matters. She 
has steadfastly refused to accept Christianity, though 
she has listened to all the arguments that have been 
made to her. She elects to cling to the beliefs of her 
fathers, — a fact that does not at all detract from the 
esteem in which the missionaries hold her. 

A few months ago I met Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull by 
[163] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

appointment at my son Harry's trading store, located 
at Oak Creek, on the Standing Rock Indian reserva- 
tion. She had come in fifteen miles from her home on 
the Missouri River, near the mouth of Oak Creek, for 
the meeting. I was accompanied by a friend, and she 
greeted us with the effusive welcome of her people — 
as different as possible in its warmth and volubility 
from the greeting one not acquainted intimately with 
the Sioux might expect. She was a striking figure as 
she stood up to greet us. 

This historian and poetess of the Sioux wore the 
ordinary costume of a woman of her people, but her 
gingham dress was of the Campbell plaid, her shawl- 
blanket of native make, her moccassins neat, her 
jetty hair falling in two braids on each side of a smil- 
ing and expressive countenance. She looked a much 
younger woman than she really was — and by way of 
demonstrating that she still felt young, she danced a 
few steps, laughingly declaring that she had met and 
danced with many prominent people. It was after a 
substantial supper, to which Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull 
did full justice, that we sat down in my son's little par- 
lor and listened to her story of the affair on the little 
Big Horn. 

I have always deplored the fact that English writers 
have never been able to render in their native elegance 
and appositeness the similes used by Indian orators 
and story-tellers. I now deplore the lack of that same 
capacity in myself. Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull exhausted 
the stores of her flowery vocabulary in the relation we 
listened to. She talked with great fluency, her voice 
pitched to a sort of breathless stage of excited feel- 
ing. I remember hearing a young woman declaim the 
[ 164] 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

Chorus in "Henry V," put on by an American actor- 
manager a few years ago ; the Sioux story-teller re- 
minded me of the actress. She illustrated her every 
sentence in pantomime, and when she feared that she 
had not pictured the scene her memory brought up, 
she seized a pencil and paper and drew a sketch of the 
valley of the Little Big Horn, showing the location of 
the Indian village on the west bank, the distribution 
of the bands of the Sioux, the points of attack by Cus- 
ter and Reno, and the fatal hill, now marked by a 
monument, where Custer fell. This sketch she used 
constantly to explain her meaning, and she was per- 
fectly frank about the occurrences of June 25, 1876, 
except on one point. She ignored all questions as 
to the whereabouts of Sitting Bull during the fight. 
Skillfully avoiding the interrogation, or totally ignor- 
ing it, she made many excursions into Sioux history of 
that time ; but Sitting Bull, her kinsman, who skulked 
in the hills while his people were carrying out the an- 
nihilation of the troops, she would not speak of. Once, 
exasperated by the questions of the third party to the 
hearing, she asked if he was a lawyer, and, being as- 
sured that he was not, she shook hands with him very 
solemnly and continued her relation. And this is the 
tale she told : — 

" My brother. White Eyebrows, had been to a dance. 
All through the night he had been making glad the 
hearts of the maidens, for my brother was good to 
look upon and the women of the Hunkpapa know a 
good man. All the night he had danced with the other 
young people. It was not a war dance, but just a 
merry-making of the younger people. A few days 
previous, our men had fought with the Crows and 
[165] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Shoshones [General Crook's allies] and the enemies 
of my people had fallen as leaves when they turn yel- 
low. We were not harmed, and there was no mourn- 
ing in the village of the Sioux on the plateau beside 
the Greasy Grass, the river that the white men call 
the Little Big Horn. When my brother came to my 
tepee from the dance, I still slept. Late the night be- 
fore I and the other women of the Hunkpapa had 
labored to make ready for the march that we were to 
take up that morning. Where we were going, I know 
not. Where the men of the Sioux go, there go the 
women ; it is their duty and their pleasure. Our people 
were roaming through the country that had been given 
them before the coming of the whites. The country 
was good; there was rich grass for the ponies, and 
sweet water; the fields glowed with prairie flowers of 
yellow and red and blue ; there were buffaloes in the 
valleys and Indian turnips on the hills for the digging. 
We were rich in provisions, and no man had a right to 
put out his hand and tell us that we should not roam. 
The village by the Greasy Grass was but the stopping- 
place for a day or two, and we had no thought of a fight 
with the white man. The Crows and Shoshones we 
had no fears of, for the lodges of the Sioux were many 
and their men brave as the lion of the mountains. 
But we were to move out to the northwest, and I had 
made many bundles of my store. Thus it was that I 
lay sleeping when my brother came to the tepee in 
the dawn and asked for food. 

" I unpacked some of the bundles and prepared his 

breakfast, buffalo meat stewed with turnips, and set 

it before him ; and as he ate, the people of the village 

awakened and the sun rose higher. I have said that our 

[ 166] 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

lodges were many, but how many people there were, 
I know not. [There were about ten thousand Indians, 
including women and children, in the village.] But 
the women were all at work, and the ponies were be- 
ing rounded up and preparations for leaving went on, 
that we might be away before the heat of the day be- 
came great, as it sometimes is in the country of my 
people and in the valleys near the big hills. 

" The village was made along the Greasy Grass and 
between that river and the Big Horn, which flows 
north to the Yellowstone. The Blackfeet, who were 
not many, had the place at the south end of the vil- 
lage ; next to the Blackfeet and closer to the river were 
my people, the Hunkpapa ; down the river and next 
to the Hunkpapa were the Minniconjou ; and below 
them the Sans Arc. Behind the Hunkpapa, away from 
the river, were theOglala and the Brule; and below the 
Minniconjou to the north were the Cheyennes. Up 
the river from the village of the Blackfeet there was 
thick timber, and through this we could not see. 

"I have seen my people prepare for battle many 
times, and this I know : that the Sioux that morning 
had no thought of fighting. We expected no attack, 
and our young men did not watch for the coming of 
Long Hair [Custer] and his soldiers. 

"Most of the women were occupied in packing their 
stores preparatory to breaking camp, and some of 
them were working along the bank of the river. On 
the east side of the river an old man had shot a buffalo 
that morning, and near where the buffalo lay dead 
some women and children were digging Indian tur- 
nips. These people first saw the soldiers, who then 
were far to the east. They were on the little hills 
[ 167] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

between the Greasy Grass and the Rosebud Rivers. 
They were six to eight miles distant when first seen, 
and some of the younger people hurried in from the 
place where the buffalo was killed to notify the camp. 
We could see the flashing of their sabres and saw that 
there were very many soldiers in the party. My people 
went on with their work, making ready to move across 
the Big Horn, but the tepees were not yet down. The 
men of the Sioux were much excited, and they watched 
the coming of Long Hair and hurried the women. The 
village was not made for a fight and they would move 
on. We had seen the soldiers marching along the high 
ridge on the east side of the river and were watching 
them, but had not seen these others approaching." 

Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull halted in her story, and 
thought for a few moments. Then she struck her 
hands sharply together to imitate the rattling of car- 
bine fire and continued : — 

"Like that the soldiers were upon us. Through 
the tepee poles their bullets rattled. The sun was 
several hours high and the tepees were empty. Bul- 
lets coming from a strip of timber on the west bank 
of the Greasy Grass passed through the tepees of the 
Blackfeet and Hunkpapa. The broken character of 
the country across the river, together with the fringe 
of trees on the west side, where our camp was situ- 
ated, had hidden the advance of a great number of 
soldiers, which we had not seen until they were close 
upon us and shooting into our end of the village, 
where, from seeing the direction taken by the soldiers 
we were watching, we felt comparatively secure. 

" The women and children cried, fearing they would 
be killed, but the men, the Hunkpapa and Blackfeet, 
[ 168] 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

the Oglala and Minniconjou, mounted their horses 
and raced to the Blackfeet tepees. We could still see 
the soldiers of Long Hair marching along in the dis- 
tance, and our men, taken by surprise, and from a 
point whence they had not expected to be attacked, 
went singing the song of battle into the fight behind 
the Blackfeet village. And we women wailed over the 
children, for we believed that the Great Father had 
sent all his men for the destruction of the Sioux. Some 
of the women put loads on the travois and would have 
left, but that their husbands and sons were in the fight. 
Others tore their hair and wept for the fate that they 
thought was to be the portion of the Sioux, through 
the anger of the Great Father, but the men were not 
afraid, and they had many guns and cartridges. Like 
the fire that, driven by a great wind, sweeps through 
the heavy grass-land where the buffalo range, the men 
of the Hunkpapa, the Blackfeet, the Oglala, and the 
Minniconjou rushed through the village and into the 
trees, where the soldiers of the white chief had stopped 
to fire. The soldiers [Reno's] had been sent by Long 
Hair to surprise the village of my people. Silently had 
they moved off around the hills, and keeping out of 
sight of the young men of our people, had crept in, 
south of what men now call Reno Hill ; they had 
crossed the Greasy Grass and climbed the bench from 
the bank. The way from the river to the plateau upon 
which our tepees stood was level, but the soldiers were 
on foot when they came in sight of the Blackfeet. 
Then it was that they fired and warned us of their 
approach." 

Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull stopped an instant, and 
then said : — 

[169] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

" If the soldiers had not fired until all of them were 
ready for the attack ; if they had brought their horses 
and rode into the camp of the Sioux, the power of the 
Dakota nation might have been broken, and our 
young men killed in the surprise, for they were watch- 
ing Long Hair only and had no thought of an attack 
anywhere while they could see his soldiers traveling 
along parallel with the river on the opposite side, and 
more than a rifle-shot back from the river. Long Hair 
had planned cunningly that Reno should attack in 
the rear while he rode down and gave battle from the 
front of the village looking on the river. But the Great 
Spirit was watching over his red children. He allowed 
the white chief [Reno] to strike too soon, and the 
braves of the Sioux ran over his soldiers and beat 
them down as corn before the hail. They fought a 
few minutes, and the men of the Hunkpapa, the 
Blackfeet, Oglala, and the Minniconjou bore them 
down and slew many of them — all who did not get 
across the river were killed. And Long Hair was still 
three miles away when nearly all of the blue coats 
that came to kill the Sioux, at our end of the village, 
were dead ; only those escaped who were mounted on 
horses and got across the river. Those who crossed 
the river got on a high hill to the east, where our young 
men did not attack them further until after Custer 
and his men were killed. Two score of the bluecoats 
lay dead on the field, and our people took their guns 
and many cartridges, and the mourning was in the 
houses afar off where the women of the white braves 
waited to hear of the victory they expected their 
young men to win. 

" The shadow of the sun had not moved the width of 
[ 170] 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

a tepee pole's length from the beginning to the ending 
of the first fight; and while it was going on, the old 
man who had shot the buffalo east of the river, and 
some of the women and children who had been digging 
Indian turnips, and were cut off by the approach of 
Reno's men, came to the camp. They had seen the 
soldiers of Long Hair, and had heard the firing of 
Reno's men, and had secreted themselves in the tim- 
ber along the river until the guns no longer spoke. 

"Down the Greasy Grass River, three or four miles 
from where Reno's men had crossed the river, and 
over across from the camps of the Cheyennes and the 
Sans Arc, there is an easy crossing of the Greasy 
Grass. The crossing is near a butte, and around the 
butte there runs a deep ravine. From Long Hair's 
movements the Sioux warriors knew that he had 
planned to strike the camp of my people from the 
lower end as Reno struck it from the upper end. Even 
the women, who knew nothing of warfare, saw that 
Reno had struck too early, and the warriors who were 
generals in planning, even as Long Hair was, knew 
that the white chief would attempt to carry out his 
plan of the attack, believing that Reno had beaten our 
young men. There was wild disorder in our camp, 
the old women and children shrieked and got in the 
way of the warriors, and the women were ordered 
back out of the village, so that they might not be in 
the way of our soldiers. And our men went singing 
down the river, confident that the enemy would be 
defeated, even as we believed that all of Reno's men 
had been killed. And I wept with the women for the 
brave dead and exulted that our braves should gain a 
great victory over the whites led by Long Hair, who 
[171] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

was the greatest of their chiefs, and whose soldiers 
could then be plainly seen across the river. From a 
hill behind the camp, at first, and then from the bank 
of the river, I watched the men of our people plan to 
overthrow the soldiers of the Great Father; and be- 
fore a shot was fired, I knew that no man who rode 
with Long Hair would go back to tell the tale of the 
fight that would begin when the soldiers approached 
the river at the lower end of the village." 

The story-teller paused and was then asked the 
question: " Where was Sitting Bull during the fight .P" 
She went on as though she had not heard the question. 

" From across the river I could hear the music of the 
bugle and could see the column of soldiers turn to the 
left, to march down to the river to where the attack 
was to be made. All I could see was the warriors of 
my people. They rushed like the wind through the 
village, going down the ravine as the women went out 
to the grazing-ground to round up the ponies. It was 
done very quickly. There had been no council the 
night before — there was no need for one ; nor had 
there been a scalp-dance: nothing but the merry- 
making of the young men and the maidens. When we 
did not know there was to be a fight, we could not be 
prepared for it. And our camp was not pitched antici- 
pating a battle. The warriors would not have picked 
out such a place for a fight with white men, open to 
attack from both ends and from the west side. No; 
what was done that day was done while the sun stood 
still and the white men were delivered into the hands 
of the Sioux. But no plan was necessary. 

" Our chiefs and the young men rode quickly down 
to the end of the village, opposite to the hill upon 
[ 172] 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

which there now stands the great stone put up by the 
whites where Long Hair fell. Between that hill and 
the soldiers was a ravine which started from the river 
opposite the camp of the Sans Arc, and ran all the 
way around the butte. To get to the butte Long Hair 
must cross the ravine ; but from where he was march- 
ing with his soldiers, he could not see into the ravine 
nor down to the banks of the river. The warriors of 
my people, of all the bands, the Sans Arc, the Chey- 
enne, the Brule, the Minn icon jou, the Oglala, the 
Blackfeet, all had joined with the Hunkpapa on our 
side of the Greasy Grass and opposite the opening into 
the ravine. Soon I saw a number of Cheyennes ride 
into the river, then some young men of my band, then 
others, until there were hundreds of warriors in the 
river and running up into the ravine. When some hun- 
dreds had passed the river and gone into the ravine, 
the others who were left, still a very great number, 
moved back from the river and waited for the attack. 
And I knew that the fighting men of the Sioux, many 
hundreds in number, were hidden in the ravine behind 
the hill upon which Long Hair was marching, and he 
would be attacked from both sides. And my heart was 
sad for the soldiers of Long Hair, though they sought 
the lives of our men ; but I was a woman of the Sioux, 
and my husband, my uncles, and cousins, and broth- 
ers, all taking part in the battle, were men who could 
fight and plan, and I was satisfied. 

"Pizi [Gall] and many of his young men had re- 
crossed the Greasy Grass River after the white men 
had been driven off or killed in the earlier engagement 
at the upper end of the village, where he with some of 
our warriors had been shooting at the soldiers, who 
[173] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

were chased to the hill, and the soldiers had been 
shooting at them, but could not hit the Sioux. When 
Pizi [Gall] recrossed the river, many women followed 
his party, and we heard him tell his men to frighten 
the horses of the soldiers, which were held in small 
bunches. With shoutings that we could hear across 
the river, the young men stampeded the horses and 
the women captured them and brought them to the 
village. The Indians fought the soldiers with bullets 
taken from the first party that attacked their village, 
and many rode the horses captured from the white 
men, who had fled to the hill. To the northwest a 
great many women and children were driving in the 
ponies of the Sioux, but I remained with many other 
women along the bank of Greasy Grass River. I saw 
Crazy Horse lead the Cheyennes into the water and 
up the ravine; Crow King and the Hunkpapa went 
after them ; and then Gall, who had led his young men 
and killed the soldiers he had been fighting farther 
up the river, rode along the bench by the river to 
where Long Hair had stopped with his men. 

"I cannot remember the time. When men fight 
and the air is filled with bullets, when the screaming 
of horses that are shot drowns the war-whoop of the 
warriors, a woman whose husband and brothers are 
in the battle does not think of the time. But the sun 
was no longer overhead when the war-whoop of the 
Sioux sounded from the river-bottom and the ravine 
surrounding the hill at the end of the ridge where 
Long Hair had taken his last stand. The river was in 
sight from the butte, and while the whoop still rung in 
our ears and the women were shrieking, two Chey- 
ennes tried to cross the river and one of them was shot 
[174] 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

and killed by Long Hair's men. Then the men of the 
Sioux nation, led by Crow King, Hump, Crazy Horse, 
and many great chiefs, rose up on all sides of the hill, 
and the last we could see from our side of the river 
was a great number of gray horses. The smoke of the 
shooting and the dust of the horses shut out the hill, 
and the soldiers fired many shots, but the Sioux shot 
straight and the soldiers fell dead. The women 
crossed the river after the men of our village, and 
when we came to the hill there were no soldiers living 
and Long Hair lay dead among the rest. There were 
more than two hundred dead soldiers on the hill, and 
the boys of the village shot many who were already 
dead, for the blood of the people was hot and their 
hearts bad, and they took no prisoners that day." 

The woman sat playing with the edge of her blanket. 
Of the dreadful things that took place on the hill after 
the command of the unfortunate Custer had been an- 
nihilated, she would, of course, say nothing. The wo- 
men of her nation finished the work of the warriors on 
that awful field. 

I asked her if there was any more fighting. 

" Not much. The men on the hill [Reno's] were safe 
to stay there until they wanted water. Gall kept his 
men along the river. Some of the soldiers were shot 
as they tried to reach the water. There was some fight- 
ing too, but none of our young men were killed. 

"That night the Sioux, men, women, and children, 
lighted many fires and danced ; their hearts were glad, 
for the Great Spirit had given them a great victory. 
All along the valley of the Greasy Grass, fires were 
lighted, and the women laughed as they labored hard 
to bring in the fuel ; for in the darkness they could see 
[175] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the gleam of the flames on the arms of the soldiers fas- 
tened in a trap on Reno Hill. The people had taken 
many guns, cartridges, horses, and much clothing 
from the soldiers, and they rejoiced while the fires lit 
up the field on the hill across the river, where the naked 
bodies of the soldiers lay. We had much money, but 
did not know at the time what its real value was, and 
a lot of green-paper money was kept in my tepee for 
some time before being disposed of. All night the 
people danced and sang their songs of victory, and 
they were strong in their might and would have at- 
tacked the soldiers who lay through the night on what 
you call Reno Hill, but Gall and Crow King and 
Crazy Horse would waste no lives of the Sioux braves. 
They said : * We will shoot at them occasionally, but 
not charge. They will fall into our hands when the 
thirst burns in their throats and makes them mad for 
drink.' 

*' This was the counsel of the chiefs, and the young 
men saw that it was good ; so while many feasted, a few 
held the hill and the soldiers did not know it, for of 
those who stole to the river to drink, none went back 
alive. There was fighting the next day, but the Sioux 
knew early in the day that many soldiers were coming 
up from the north, and preparations were made to 
leave for new hunting-grounds. And while our hearts 
were singing for the victory our braves had won, there 
were wailing women in the village, for they had their 
dead. Since the Sioux first fought the men who are our 
friends now, they had not won so great a battle and at 
so little cost. Twenty-two dead were counted, and the 
price was not great ; but what wife, or mother, or sister 
gives thought to victory when she finds her dead on the 
[ 176 1 



AN INDIAN VIEW OF THE CUSTER TRAGEDY 

field? So it was that in the midst of the rejoicing, 
there was sorrowing among the women, who would 
not be comforted in knowing that their dead had gone 
to join the ghosts of the brave. The dead we took with 
us, laid on travois, and carried for many days, for 
among the white men were Crow and Shoshone scouts, 
who would desecrate our dead, and we would have no 
Sioux scalps dangling at their tepee-poles. 

" So we went out from Greasy Grass River, and left 
Long Hair and his dead to their friends. The people 
scattered and the pursuit did not harm us. But I still 
remember the bitterness of the suffering of the Sioux 
that winter, after we had met and talked with Bear 
Coat [General Miles] on the Yellowstone, when we 
were on our way north into the land of the Red Coats, 
where we remained five winters, and were frequently 
very destitute, while we remained there. 

" So it was that the Sioux defeated Long Hair and 
his soldiers in the valley of the Greasy Grass River, 
which my people remember with regret, but without 
shame. We are now living happily and in friendship 
with the whites, knowing that their hearts are good 
toward us. The great chiefs who led that fight are 
dead : Gall, Crow King, Crazy Horse, Big Road, and 
the other head men are dead and gone to the land of 
ghosts, but their deeds live, and we of the Sioux nation 
keep them in our memories, even as we keep in 
remembrance Long Hair and his men, whose bravery 
in battle makes the bravery of their conquerors a 
thing that cannot be buried in the grave nor forgotten, 
because their ghosts are at peace." 

And Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull put the corner of her 
shawl to her face and wiped away a tear, forced per- 
[177] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

haps by the thought that the husband of her youth, 
whom she has not forgotten, — though she has had 
many offers from chief men of her people, — was with 
the ghosts of those others who fought with and against 
him on that June day, thirty-three years ago, in the 
valley of the Little Big Horn. 



CHAPTER XI 
WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

The Message that Kicking Bear carried to the Sioux Chief and that 
led to the Death of Sitting Bull. 

I STOOD by the grave of Sitting Bull one Sunday 
evening a few months ago. The mound under 
which is buried the body of the medicine man is 
in the extreme northwest corner of the Fort Yates 
military cemetery, adjoining the Standing Rock 
Agency, North Dakota. It is marked with the sten- 
ciled inscription, in black on a white board : — 

SITTING BULL 

DIED 

December 15, 1890. 

There was no other grave within thirty yards. A 
profound peace lay upon the place. Far up toward the 
agency school a number of Indian boys played cro- 
quet; a phonograph in the Indian police-headquarters 
was working, — as it is most of the time, — and oddly 
enough it was reproducing "Taps" from a bugler's 
record. Two hundred yards east of the grave of Sit- 
ting Bull the deserted barracks of Fort Yates afforded 
a dismal playground for the children of the agency 
employees, and their voices came faintly down to the 
cemetery ; in the northwest the sun was dropping out 
of sight behind the buttes. A more lovely landscape, 
[ 179 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

a scene more replete with the suggestion of a holy 
peace, could not be imagined; and there at my feet 
lay, stilled forever, the form which had been the tene- 
ment of the turbulent spirit of Sitting Bull, who had 
striven all his life to bar the progress of the white man, 
who made the setting for this all-pervading peace, 
while a few rods away stood the dismantled fort built 
to hold that spirit in check. The deserted fort and the 
dead hostile spoke to me of the passing of the day of 
the Indian, and as the peal of the vesper bell floated 
down from the mission chapel on the hill, I was 
minded to tell the story of the death of Sitting Bull. 

Crafty, avaricious, mendacious, and ambitious. 
Sitting Bull possessed all of the faults of an Indian 
and none of the nobler attributes which have gone far 
to redeem some of his people from their deeds of guilt. 
He had no single quality that would serve to draw his 
people to him, yet he was by far the most influential 
man of his nation for many years, — neither Gall, 
Spotted Tail, nor Red Cloud, all greater men in every 
sense, exerting the power he did. I never knew him 
to display a single trait that might command admira- 
tion or respect, and I knew him well in the later years 
of his life. But he maintained his prestige by theacute- 
ness of his mind and his knowledge of human nature. 
Even his people knew him as a physical coward, but 
the fact did not handicap the man in dealing with his 
following. He had many defenders at all times, and 
his medicine was good down to the end. 

He was not a hereditary chief, nor even a chief by 
election or choice. He was born in 1834 on the Grand 
River, South Dakota, within twenty miles of the scene 
[ 180] 



WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

of his death. His father's name was Sitting Bull, and 
the son was called, as a boy. Jumping Badger. I had 
his history from his own lips when he returned, in 
May, 1883, from his imprisonment at Fort Randall, 
where he was held after his surrender in 1881. He 
got his name and made his first entrance into the 
public life of his band — the Hunkpapa — by the use 
of that intelligence which he displayed through life. 

As a boy of fourteen, he told me, — and the facts 
were well known to the people, — that he accompa- 
nied his father and their tribesmen on one occasion 
when the Sioux took the war-path against the Crows. 
In a battle a Crow warrior was killed. Jumping Bad- 
ger did not kill the man, but he counted the coup, — 
touched the body first after death, — and established 
his right to be regarded as the slayer. Upon the return 
of this war-party to the village. Jumping Badger's 
father made a feast, gave away a great many ponies, 
and announced that his son had won the right to wear 
his father's name and should thenceforth be known 
as Sitting Bull — in which the old man made provi- 
sion beyond his knowing for the perpetuation of the 
name. His accuracy of judgment, knowledge of men, 
a student-like disposition to observe natural phenom- 
ena, and a deep insight into affairs among Indians and 
such white people as he came into contact with, made 
his stock in trade, and he made "good medicine." 
He made a pretence at mysticism that was easily sus- 
tained among his people, and long before the Custer 
affair he had a high standing among the common peo- 
ple and was too high to be injured by the contempt of 
the war-chiefs. 

There is no doubt that his medicine was good in the 
[ 181 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Custer affair. He foretold with great accuracy the 
battle and the event, and the mere fact that he took 
to the hills, there to make medicine, while the fight 
was in progress, did not affect his standing adversely. 
He came out of the affair with higher honor than he 
possessed when he went into it. The disastrous re- 
treat to Canada, and the sufferings his people under- 
went while he was leading them, caused him a con- 
siderable loss in prestige. Gall and Crow King, his 
chief lieutenants, found him to be a fraud and a 
coward, and deserted him. Hump of the Minnicon- 
jou left him and surrendered. Rain-in-the-Face and 
other hereditary chiefs of his people despised him as 
an incompetent leader and coward, and brought their 
people in. Sitting Bull surrendered at Fort Buford in 
July, 1881, and when I first came in contact with him 
personally he was a prisoner. Officially I had been 
watching him for years. 

It was on the day I arrived to take charge of the 
agency at Standing Rock, September 8, 1881, that I 
saw him first. He was a prisoner on board the steamer 
General Sherman. The boat had brought me down 
from Bismarck, and was ordered to take on board at 
Fort Yates, near the agency. Sitting Bull and one hun- 
dred and forty-six of his fellow prisoners, for trans- 
port to Fort Randall. Sitting Bull and his people were 
on board when I went down to the steamer after get- 
ting my things ashore. He had sent for me to tell me 
of his grievances. He was a stocky man, with an evil 
face and shifty eyes, and he still showed the effect of 
his desperate experience of five years in the Canadian 
Northwest, chiefly in the Province of Alberta. He 
knew of me, and what little he said was without his 
[ 182 ] 



WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

usual arrogance, for he was then desirous of making 
friends. I saw no more of him until he was released 
as a prisoner of war and sent from Fort Randall, Da- 
kota Territory, and came under my jurisdiction at 
Standing Rock on May 10, 1883,where he lived up to 
the time of his death, and where I succeeded in keep- 
ing him out of mischief generally until 1890. 

KICKING BEAR AND THE COMING OF THE GHOSTS 

It was in the early fall of 1890 that Kicking Bear, 
a half-crazed fanatic of the Minniconjou band, came 
up from the Cheyenne River reservation and imparted 
to Sitting Bull the secrets of the new religion which 
would bring the Indian into the inheritance of the 
earth. As an exhorter Kicking Bear was a power, but 
he had no force as a leader. The doctrine he came to 
spread was contrived with such ingenuity that it is 
still a wonder to me that it did not spread further 
among a people so much given to superstitions that 
accepted spiritism as the foundation of all things re- 
ligious. It took a tremendous hold upon those who 
became at all infected with the new belief. 

There has been much speculation as to the origin 
of the Messianic movement. The Indians said it came 
from a people "who lived beyond the Yellow Faces 
to the west of the Utes." This led me to believe that 
the craze took form at the instigation of some genius 
of the southwestern tribes, who had observed the prac- 
tices of those descendants of the Aztecs who look to 
the east every morning in anticipation of the return 
of Montezuma, who is to redeem them from toil and 
subjection and set them to rule over the earth. The 
new belief had traveled far in a brief space of time, 
[ 183] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

and sprang into vigorous life almost in a day on the 
Standing Rock reservation. It looked like an inspired 
outbreak of religious zeal. As a matter of fact I am 
convinced that the new religion was managed from 
the beginning, so far as the Standing Rock Sioux were 
concerned, by Sitting Bull, who had heard of the new 
faith that was making some headway in the southern 
reservations, and who, having lost his former influ- 
ence over the Sioux, planned to import and use it to 
reestablish himself in the leadership of the people, 
whom he might then lead in safety in any desperate 
enterprise which he might direct. 

During the summer of that year I was repeatedly 
compelled to refuse Sitting Bull permission to visit the 
Cheyenne River reservation. Some reports had come 
to us of the introduction of the "Ghost-Dancing" re- 
ligion in the southern reservations, and I declined to 
allow Sitting Bull to leave his home. He had estab- 
lished himself with his family and friends on the Grand 
River, forty miles southwest of the agency, and was 
under the espionage of Indians upon whose fidelity 
I could reckon ; and that dependence was warranted 
even to the death, it was shown. 

Sitting Bull had heard of Kicking Bear. That indi- 
vidual had been absent from home for about a year, 
and had begun to preach the new religion on his re- 
turn. Finding that he could not get away himself, 
Sitting Bull sent six of his young men to Cherry Creek, 
on the Cheyenne River reservation, with an invita- 
tion to Kicking Bear to make him, Sitting Bull, a visit. 
The Minniconjou medicine man arrived at Grand 
River October 9, 1890, and forthwith initiated Sitting 
Bull into the mysteries of the new cult. I had never 
[184] 




SITTING BULL 



WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

seen Kicking Bear at that time, but had learned of 
the doctrine upon which he based his preaching, the 
"revelation," from the lips of One Bull, a nephew of 
Sitting Bull, who repeated to me word for word, with 
that accuracy of memory that marks the unlettered, 
the preachment of Kicking Bear. One Bull, an In- 
dian policeman at the time, imparted what he had 
heard of the new dispensation with obvious trepida- 
tion, but with some sense of security, because he had 
found that Sitting Bull's medicine was no longer good. 
I set the matter down at the time in the words of 
Kicking Bear, as repeated by One Bull, and here it 
is: — 

"My brothers, I bring to you the promise of a day 
in which there will be no white man to lay his hand 
on the bridle of the Indian's horse; when the red men 
of the prairie will rule the world and not be turned 
from the hunting-grounds by any man. I bring you 
word from your fathers the ghosts, that they are now 
marching to join you, led by the Messiah who came 
once to live on earth with the white men, but was cast 
out and killed by them. I have seen the wonders of the 
spirit-land, and have talked with the ghosts. I traveled 
far and am sent back with a message to tell you to 
make ready for the coming of the Messiah and return 
of the ghosts in the spring. 

"In my tepee on the Cheyenne reservation I arose 
after the corn-planting, sixteen moons ago, and pre- 
pared for my journey. I had seen many things and 
had been told by a voice to go forth and meet the 
ghosts, for they were to return and inhabit the earth. 
I traveled far on the cars of the white men, until I 
came to the place where the railroad stopped. There I 
[185] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

met two men, Indians, whom I had never seen before, 
but who greeted me as a brother and gave me meat 
and bread. They had three horses, and we rode with- 
out talking for four days, for I knew they were to be 
witnesses to what I should see. Two suns had we 
traveled, and had passed the last signs of the white 
man, — for no white man had ever had the courage to 
travel so far, — when we saw a strange and fierce- 
looking black man, dressed in skins. He was living 
alone, and had medicine with which he could do what 
he wished. He would wave his hands and make great 
heaps of money ; another motion, and we saw many 
spring wagons, already painted and ready to hitch 
horses to ; yet another motion of the hands, and there 
sprung up before us great herds of buffalo. The black 
man spoke and told us that he was the friend of the 
Indian; that we should remain with him and go no 
farther, and we might take what we wanted of the 
money, and spring wagons, and the buffalo. But our 
hearts were turned away from the black man, my 
brothers, and we left him and traveled for two days 
more. 

" On the evening of the fourth day, when we were 
weak and faint from our journey, we looked for a 
camping-place, and were met by a man dressed like 
an Indian, but whose hair was long and glistening like 
the yellow money of the white man. His face was very 
beautiful to see, and when he spoke my heart was 
glad and I forgot my hunger and the toil I had gone 
through. And he said, * How, my children. You have 
done well to make this long journey to come to me. 
Leave your horses and follow me.' And our hearts 
sang in our breasts and we were glad. He led the 
[ 186] 



WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

way up a great ladder of small clouds, and we fol- 
lowed him up through an opening in the sky. My 
brothers, the tongue of Kicking Bear is straight and 
he cannot tell all that he saw, for he is not an orator, 
but the forerunner and herald of the ghosts. He whom 
we followed took us to the Great Spirit and his wife, 
and we lay prostrate on the ground, but I saw that they 
were dressed as Indians. Then from an opening in 
the sky we were shown all the countries of the earth 
and the camping-grounds of our fathers since the be- 
ginning; all were there, the tepees, and the ghosts of 
our fathers, and great herds of buffalo, and a country 
that smiled because it was rich and the white man was 
not there. Then he whom we had followed showed 
us his hands and feet, and there were wounds in them 
which had been made by the whites when he went 
to them and they crucified him. And he told us that 
he was going to come again on earth, and this time 
he would remain and live with the Indians, who were 
his chosen people. 

" Then we were seated on rich skins, of animals un- 
known to me, before the open door of the tepee of the 
Great Spirit, and told how to say the prayers and per- 
form the dances I am now come to show my brothers. 
And the Great Spirit spoke to us saying : — 

" ' Take this message to my red children and tell it 
to them as I say it. I have neglected the Indians for 
many moons, but I will make them my people now 
if they obey me in this message. The earth is getting 
old, and I will make it new for my chosen people, the 
Indians, who are to inhabit it, and among them will 
be all those of their ancestors who have died, their 
fathers, mothers, brothers, cousins and wives — all 
[187] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

those who hear my voice and my words through the 
tongues of my children. I will cover the earth with 
new soil to a depth of five times the height of a man, 
and under this new soil will be buried the whites, and 
all the holes and the rotten places will be filled up. 
The new lands will be covered with sweet-grass and 
running water and trees, and herds of buffalo and 
ponies will stray over it, that my red children may eat 
and drink, hunt and rejoice. And the sea to the west 
I will fill up so that no ships may pass over it, and the 
other seas will I make impassable. And while I am 
making the new earth the Indians who have heard this 
message and who dance and pray and believe will be 
taken up in the air and suspended there, while the 
wave of new earth is passing; then set down among 
the ghosts of their ancestors, relatives, and friends. 
Those of my children who doubt will be left in unde- 
sirable places, where they will be lost and wander 
around until they believe and learn the songs and the 
dance of the ghosts. And while my children are dan- 
cing and making ready to join the ghosts, they shall 
have no fear of the white man, for I will take from the 
whites the secret of making gunpowder, and the pow- 
der they now have on hand will not burn when it is di- 
rected against the red people, my children, who know 
the songs and the dances of the ghosts ; but that pow- 
der which my children, the red men, have, will burn 
and kill when it is directed against the whites and 
used by those who believe. And if a red man die at the 
hands of the whites while he is dancing, his spirit will 
only go to the end of the earth and there join the 
ghosts of his fathers and return to his friends next 
spring. Go then, my children, and tell these things 
[ 188] 



WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

to all the people and make all ready for the coming 
of the ghosts.' 

"We were given food that was rich and sweet to 
taste, and as we sat there eating, there came up 
through the clouds a man, tall as a tree and thin like a 
snake, with great teeth sticking out of his mouth, his 
body covered with short hair, and we knew at once it 
was the Evil Spirit. And he said to the Great Spirit, 
*I want half the people of the earth.' And the Great 
Spirit answered and said, * No, I cannot give you any; 
I love them all too much.' The Evil Spirit asked again 
and was again refused, and asked the third time, and 
the Great Spirit then told him that he could have the 
whites to do what he liked with, but that he would not 
let him have any Indians, as they were his chosen 
people for all future time. Then we were shown the 
dances and taught the songs that I am bringing to 
you, my brothers, and were led down the ladder of 
clouds by him who had taken us up. We found our 
horses and rode back to the railroad, the Messiah 
flying along in the air with us and teaching us the 
songs for the new dances. At the railroad he left us 
and told us to return to our people, and tell them, and 
all the people of the red nations, what we had seen ; 
and he promised us that he would return to the clouds 
no more, but would remain at the end of the earth and 
lead the ghosts of our fathers to meet us when the 
next winter is passed." 

This relation — stripped of the flowers of language 
which even the less gifted of the Sioux medicine men 
use, and told as a bald and literal translation of what 
was a most attractive story to an imaginative and 
credulous people — was occasionally varied toward 
[189] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the end of Kicking Bear's mission, and he was known 
to have admitted that he did not make the journey to 
the clouds himself, but had met those who had gone 
aloft. These vagaries, however, did not count with 
those who had once committed themselves to the new 
faith. The doctrine was artfully framed to appeal 
to the cupidity of the Indian and to inflame him 
against the whites, carrying with it promise of return 
to the free life, with plenty of buffalo and no prospect 
of work. It upset none of the pagan ideas, and gave 
approval to the current belief in the existence of the 
ghosts. A more pernicious system of religion could 
not have been offered to a people who stood on the 
threshold of civilization, and who hungered for a real- 
ization of dreams that would free them from present 
poverty, probable hunger, and the prospect of toil. 

The first thing to be done was to get rid of Kicking 
Bear. He was a big medicine man among his people, 
but I was convinced that Sitting Bull, having been 
initiated in the mysteries of the ghost-dance, would 
interpose no objection to the exclusion from his pre- 
serves of a competitor in the medicine-making. Sit- 
ting Bull had gone with zest into the business of pro- 
moting the new religion. Knowing his people, and 
utilizing the mysticism with which he habitually 
preyed on their superstitions, he established himself 
as the high priest of the cult even while Kicking Bear 
was still with him. He fasted and prayed with such 
vigor, and danced with such enthusiasm, that he 
reduced himself to mere skin and bone, and kept his 
people worked up to a high state of enthusiasm by 
inducing them to emulate his example. It was the 
appeal that the leaders of the ghost-dance made to the 
[ 190] 



WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

superstitions of the people that I feared most; and 
that I was justified in this fear was demonstrated 
when I sent a party of thirteen policemen, under the 
command of Crazy Walking, a man in whom I had 
the most complete faith, with orders to arrest Kicking 
Bear and eject him from the reservation. 

The policemen found Kicking Bear and Sitting 
Bull conducting a seance, the Minniconjou exhorting 
the people. So impressed was the ojQBcer in charge of 
the police detachment with the dance and the wonder- 
ful stories told by the dancers about their visions, that 
he was turned from his purpose, and returned to the 
agency with Sitting Bull's promise that Kicking Bear 
would leave on the following day. This report was 
brought to me October 14, and I immediately sent 
Chatka, second lieutenant of the police force, to eject 
Kicking Bear. Lieutenant Chatka was a man of great 
firmness of character, and when he asked for only 
two men and said he would drive Kicking Bear out, I 
knew that the medicine of Kicking Bear would be 
wasted on him, whatever it might cost him mentally. 
Chatka arrived at Sitting Bull's camp on the Grand 
River the next day. A very large party of Indians were 
dancing. The lieutenant pushed his way through the 
dancers, notified Kicking Bear and six men from the 
Cheyenne River reservation who were with him, to 
leave the Standing Rock reservation forthwith, which 
they proceeded to do, and he conducted them to the 
Moreau River, the southern boundary of the reserva- 
tion, about twenty-five miles southwest of Sitting 
Bull's camp. I cannot imagine a performance requir- 
ing more courage, from an Indian standpoint, than 
that accomplished by Lieutenant Chatka that day. 
[191 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

That night Sitting Bull broke the peace-pipe which 
he had kept sacredly since his surrender at Fort Bu- 
ford in 1881. He deliberately broke it in the presence 
of the assemblage of ghost-dancers, saying that he was 
ready to fight and would die for this new religion if 
need be. The effect upon his over-credulous followers, 
of this grand-stand play, in which he was an adept, 
was, as the medicine man knew it would be, tremen- 
dous and far-reaching. The people understood Sitting 
Bull to mean that he would stand against the whites 
to the death ; but he, at the same time, knew that the 
whites would pay no attention to this bit of bravado. 
After that day there was menace in the attitude of 
Sitting Bull that could only be met by summary treat- 
ment, and I recommended to the Department, ur- 
gently, the necessity of removing him, with his few 
mischief-making supporters, from the reservation to 
some remote military prison. I had previously, as 
early as June 18, 1890, made a similar recommenda- 
tion, and included with him Circling Bear, Black Bird, 
and Circling Hawk, as men who should be removed 
from the reservation, whose active opposition to the 
government policies was detrimental to the peace and 
welfare of the Indians. At the same time I assured 
the Department of my control of the Indians on the 
reservation generally ; and in this I was justified, for 
the disaffection never existed beyond about four hun- 
dred and fifty members, the immediate following of 
Sitting Bull, and thus involved only about ten per 
cent of the Indians of the Standing Rock agency. 

Sitting Bull became insolent to the Indian police, 
and arrogant through being left unmolested. The 
well-disposed Indians living along Grand River ad- 
[ 192 ] 



WHEN SITTING BULL'S MEDICINE FAILED 

jacent to his camp, who would not accept the absurdi- 
ties of the new doctrine, were subjected to frequent 
insults from him and his fanatical crazed adherents. 
He kept his people madly engaged in the new dance, 
adding absurdities to it from time to time as he ob- 
served interest and enthusiasm among them lagging. 
His conduct and attitude for some weeks previous to 
his arrest, together with the mysteriousness of his 
nightly seances, to which only unwavering members 
of the new doctrine were admitted, with the further 
fact that his immediate followers were uncommuni- 
cative and sullen, made it plainly evident that he was 
secretly preparing for some rash movement. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

How the Old Medicine Man met his Fate at the Hands of the Indian 
Police. 

THAT fall there were strenuous times on the fron- 
tier, and, in the event, it marked the passing of 
that indefinable boundary between the refine- 
ments of civilization and the country to which the 
white man had turned in the determination to compel 
nature to his needs. Looking back at it now, I can see 
that the times were pregnant of great things. On the 
one hand stood the white man — and he was not 
standing still. Nothing could deter him from going 
forward, and if, in the march of civilization, a people 
was blotted out, it would not be the first time that the 
same march had proved remorseless. 

On the other hand there was a people who stood at 
the threshold of civilization, many of whom were ear- 
nestly endeavoring to adjust themselves to the new 
conditions along the white man's road, but who wa- 
vered when bidden by the leaders of a savage cult to 
accept the new doctrine which so strongly appealed to 
all their traditions and inspirations. They were still 
very largely untutored, and strange to the ways of the 
white man. A few years back they knew no limit to 
their range in roaming save those set for them by 
tradition, and all of them remembered very vividly 
the buffalo and the plentitude of smaller game. The 
[ 194 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

buffalo was as dependable and certain a means of 
subsistence for them as the crops of the white men, — 
even more so, — and in a day, almost, the buffalo had 
been obliterated. They had been accustomed to going 
out and taking what they would in the form of meat ; 
suddenly that meat-supply was cut off, and they were 
rendered dependent on a government whose policy 
was the gradual reduction of gratuities to Indians. I 
was then, and am still, astonished at the spirit dis- 
played by the Indians under the circumstances, and 
am sure it was not meekness. They were bold enough 
in most things, but they appeared to have been sud- 
denly forced to the knowledge that the white man was 
master of the situation and the country, and that the 
salvation of the Indian lay along the broadly blazed 
trail made by the whites. The younger element among 
the Indians was quite ready to accept the inevitable, 
to abandon the god of things as they ought to be for 
"the god of things as they are." The unreconstructed 
element among the old leaders, who saw their power 
vanishing in the dawn of the day of the man who 
works, whose pride of place and chieftainship was 
being swallowed by Indians who had come to know 
the meaning of earning their bread by the sweat of 
their brows, — this element was standing for a voice- 
less and purposeless protest. 

It was not to be wondered at that the unrecon- 
structed Indians should seize upon the excuse fur- 
nished by the inventors of the Messianic movement to 
put their protest into form. Hollow Horn Bear, a 
chief of the Brule Sioux, and a man of standing and 
influence to-day, told me once that he saw the inevi- 
table. 

[195] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

" I believe," he said, " that I must die, and I think it 
would be better for me to die fighting with weapons in 
my hands than to starve to death at the agency door." 

Hollow Horn Bear has changed his opinion and 
his attitude, but what he said expressed the thought 
of the unreconstructed Indian of ghost-dancing days. 

Considering the attitude of many of the older and 
more influential Indians and the seductive promises 
of the prophets of the Indian Messiah, it may be said 
now that a bloody Indian war was averted at that time 
by the narrowest margin, and that margin held by 
the men who had won the loyal support of Indians of 
standing and influence, whose intelligence had been 
developed to a stage which permitted them to see 
clearly that the Indian could not hope to cope with 
the white man in a test of strength. And, in my per- 
sonal experience, I was shown that there were In- 
dians whose loyalty to their pledged word was so 
strong and dependable that they were ready not only 
to dare the opprobrium of their people, but to defy 
the powers of the unseen and unknown world before 
which they and their ancestors had always trembled. 

It was on the fidelity of such men as these that I 
reckoned when I assured the Department, in the sum- 
mer of 1890, that there was no danger of an uprising 
and that I had my people well in hand. Going back to 
June 7 of that year, I find a letter from the Commis- 
sioner of Indian Affairs, in which it is stated that a let- 
ter had been received by the Department from a well- 
known citizen of Pierre, South Dakota, saying that 
the Sioux Indians were planning an outbreak. Re- 
plying to this letter I said, in part, under date of 
June 18 : — 

[ 196] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

"So far as the Indians of this agency [Standing 
Rock] are concerned, there is nothing in either their 
words or their actions that would justify the rumor. 
. . . There are a few malcontents here, as at all 
of the Sioux agencies, who cling tenaciously to the 
old Indian ways and are slow to accept the new or- 
der of things, . . . and this class of Indians are ever 
ready to circulate idle rumors and sow dissensions 
to discourage the more progressive, . . . and the re- 
moval from among them of a few individuals such as 
Sitting Bull, Circling Bear, Black Bird, and Circling 
Hawk, of this agency. Big Foot and his lieutenants of 
Cheyenne River agency, Crow Dog and Low Dog of 
Rosebud, and any of the like sort of Pine Ridge, would 
end all trouble and uneasiness in the future." 

This recommendation I reiterated repeatedly. It 
was the common-sense proposition to remove the 
disaffected from the well affected; but the desired 
order was not forthcoming until the disaffection had 
assumed alarming proportions. 

I felt secure in the knowledge that the Standing 
Rock Indians in general could be depended upon to 
behave themselves, but was very anxious that Sitting 
Bull, the prime mischief-maker, should be removed — 
not because there was danger that he might indulge 
in any overt act, but because he was demoralizing the 
people who submitted to his influence. The preach- 
ment to the Indians of this New Doctrine, and the 
possibilities of an unholy war based upon fanatical 
inspiration, was too good a thing to be passed by news- 
paper correspondents, and the public press soon an- 
nounced with sensational headlines that the Messianic 
movement was quite general among the various In- 
[ 197] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

dian tribes, and had assumed startling proportions 
elsewhere before its effect was felt on the Standing 
Rock reservation. 

The spread of news in the Indian country is one of 
those things not understandable of the white man, 
and the coming of the Messiah was spread among the 
Indians with the speed of the telegraph. It appeared 
one day among the Shoshones and Arapahoes in Wyo- 
ming, with a personal Messiah up in the mountains in 
some inaccessible place ; the next day it was talked of 
in Oklahoma, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, — 
the Indians of widely distant localities coming simul- 
taneously to the knowledge bf the impending emanci- 
pation of the red man. The preaching was varied ac- 
cording to the locality, or the needs or intelligence of 
its promoters and prophets. But behind it all there 
was the same menace to white domination, the same 
appeal to the prejudices and passions of the red man, 
the same promise of a return to the blissful state of 
freedom and plenty that had obtained before the com- 
ing of the white man and the passing of the buffalo. 
In those parts of the country where the Indian was 
as little understood as he was known personally, his 
mysterious attitude led many to believe it to mean an 
impending Indian war, and everybody appeared to 
overlook the conditions that surrounded the red man. 
If it had developed a war, it could only have been a 
war of self-sacrifice, resulting in extermination of the 
Indians involved, as it could not have gone further 
than outbreaks in certain sections of the country, as, 
for instance, among the allied people of what had re- 
cently been the Great Sioux reservation. An outbreak 
might be disastrous if the Indians were permitted to 
[ 198] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

mass, after defying the agency authorities, but only 
sparsely settled districts would be involved. It was 
plainly the business of the government and its agents 
to prevent the Indians from leaving the reservations 
upon which they were located, and to suppress the 
ghost-dancing by demonstrating to the unthinking 
the powerlessness of their prophets to save themselves 
from punishment for insubordination. I knew these 
conditions, and suggested a remedy at once in the 
removal of the trouble-makers. 

I had no doubt of the loyalty of a vast majority 
of the people of the reservation, and knew that the 
suppression of the "pernicious activity" of Sitting 
Bull would go far toward putting an end to the craze 
throughout the country ; but he was not removed and 
became bolder in his work of spreading the ghost- 
dancing propaganda. His following, however, con- 
tinued very generally restricted to his own particular 
people of the Hunkpapa band living along the Grand 
River. But some of the best men on the reservation 
were touched in their superstitious natures by the 
new religion. I had to bolster up more than one of the 
head men, and in this I was aided by their personal 
hatred of the man who had led them into so much 
trouble in the seventies. There were not wanting 
those who volunteered to go out and bring Sitting 
Bull in ; but, lacking orders for the arrest of the man, 
I could not permit this. 

October 17 I wrote the Department again, giving 
a history of the ghost-dancing craze on the Standing 
Rock reservation, and concluding in these words : — 

"Desiring to exhaust all reasonable means before 
resorting to extremes, I have sent a message to Sitting 
[199] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Bull, by One Bull, his nephew, that I want to see him 
at the agency, and I feel quite confident that I shall 
succeed in allaying the present excitement and put 
a stop to this absurd craze for the present at least ; but 
I would respectfully recommend the removal from the 
reservation and confinement in some military prison 
at a distance from the Sioux country, of Sitting Bull 
and the parties named in my letter of June 18 last." 

In response to this I received, under date of Octo- 
ber 29, a letter from Acting Commissioner of Indian 
Affairs, R. V. Belt, directing me to notify Sitting Bull 
and the other malcontents that the Secretary of the 
Interior was greatly displeased with their conduct, 
and to let Sitting Bull understand that he would be 
held to a strict accountability for the misconduct of 
any of his followers. 

During the following two weeks agitation was pro- 
gressing in the outside world and the state of the pub- 
lic mind was probably represented in the action of 
the government which resulted in this order by tele- 
graph : — 

"Washington, Nov. 14, 1890. 

"To McLaughlin, 

"Agent, Standing Rock Agency, — 
"The President has directed the Secretary of 
War to assume a military responsibility for the sup- 
pression of any threatened outbreak among the Sioux 
Indians, and that an officer of high rank be sent to in- 
vestigate the situation among them. He suggests that 
the agents separate the well-disposed from the ill-dis- 
posed Indians, and, while maintaining their control 
and discipline, so far as possible to avoid forcing any 
issue that will result in an outbreak. You will exer- 
[ 200 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

cise wise discretion in carrying out the President's 
suggestion, carefully observing the caution he directs 
and avoiding publicity of these instructions. 

"R. V. Belt, 
"Acting Commissioner." 

At this late day I am frank to say that I feared mili- 
tary interference with the Indians, not that I doubted 
the capacity of the military, but because I was con- 
vinced that a military demonstration would precipitate 
a collision and bloodshed, which might be avoided. 
I was on excellent terms with all of the army officers 
of the Department of Dakota, and Colonel Drum, 
the commanding officer at Fort Yates, was quite as 
anxious as I was that Sitting Bull and his lieuten- 
ants should be quietly removed from the reservation, 
we continuing to cooperate during the ghost-dancing 
and up to the time of its culmination. 

Things went on as usual in the Messianic camp, 
the Indians dancing, with Sitting Bull making medi- 
cine daily and promising the extermination of the 
whites, until November 17, when I proceeded, in com- 
pany with Louis Primeau, a mixed-blood interpreter, 
to the Grand River, where I was informed a big dance 
was in progress. At this time Sitting Bull had not been 
in for his rations for some weeks, which led me to be- 
lieve that he meant mischief. I had always made it 
a practice to go unarmed among the Indians, and the 
fact that I carried no arms that day, and the further 
fact that I was on excellent terms, personally, with 
nearly all the Indians, doubtless stood me in good 
stead. 

I arrived at Sitting Bull's camp about three o'clock 
[ 201 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

in the afternoon. It was Sunday, and I was not sur- 
prised to see a large gathering of people in front of 
the houses, six in number, in the centre of the camp. 
Many of the Indians had come on a visit, but they 
had brought their tents with them as though to make 
a prolonged stay. Having approached the camp by a 
road not usually traveled, and my coming being un- 
expected, I found the ghost-dance at its full height. 
There were about two hundred people standing in a 
circle about the dancers, and except for a few men 
who endeavored to avoid being seen by me, I received 
no attention from the enthusiasts as I approached. 
But the madness of the dance demonstrated the height 
of distraction to which the dancers had attained. 

The sacred pole about which the people danced 
was set some distance from the houses. Around this 
pole a ring of men, women, boys, and girls, about one 
hundred in all, were dancing. Some of the younger 
ones had been pupils of the reservation day-schools 
until within a few weeks. The dancers held each other's 
hands, and were all jumping madly, whirling to the 
left about the pole, keeping time to a mournful croon- 
ing song, that sometimes rose to a shriek as the women 
gave way to the stress of their feelings. There was 
nothing of the slow and precise treading which ordi- 
narily marks the time of the Indian religious dance. 
Some of the dancers had thrown off their upper cloth- 
ing, and all were gasping excitedly; a few who had 
been dancing for a considerable length of time were 
completely crazed, with their tongues lolling from 
their mouths. Occasionally a poor creature, overcome 
by the fatigue of the exciting dance, would fall out of 
the ring, which was immediately closed up, and the 
[ 202 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

circling to the left continued, the dancers paying no 
attention to the fallen one. As I looked on, a middle- 
aged woman fell out of the circle and rolled to some 
distance. She was picked up by the shoulders by two 
Indians, whose trappings indicated that they were 
oflScers of the dance, and who dragged her to a tepee 
which I had not noticed before, but which commanded 
my attention now, for within the wide-open flaps of the 
wigwam, seated on a sort of throne, was my old friend, 
Sitting Bull. He was very much thinner than a few 
weeks previous, but the look he gave me showed that 
his wits were not dulled or his hatred and envy less- 
ened by the rigor of his life. By his side, fantastically 
dressed, stood Bull Ghost, Sitting Bull's mouthpiece 
in the ghost-dance exercises. Bull Ghost had been 
rather popular with the whites around the agency, and 
was familiarly known as ' One-Eyed-Riley,' he having 
but one eye and that not an attractive orb. 

The woman, still in a swoon, was laid at Sitting 
Bull's feet, and Bull Ghost announced in a loud voice 
that she was in a trance and communicating with the 
ghosts, upon which announcement the dance ceased, 
so that the dancers might hear the message from the 
spirit world. Sitting Bull performed certain incanta- 
tions, then leaned over and put his ear to the woman's 
lips. He spoke in a low voice to his herald, Bull Ghost, 
who repeated to the listening multitude the message 
which Sitting Bull pretended to receive from the un- 
conscious woman. Sitting Bull had all the tricks of the 
fake spiritualist. Knowing his people intimately, he 
knew all about the dead relatives of the woman who 
had fainted, and he made a tremendous impression 
on his audience by giving them personal messages 
[ 203 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

from the Indian ghosts, who announced with great 
unanimity that they were marching east to join their 
living kinsmen the following spring. 

The excitement was very intense, the people being 
brought to a pitch of high nervousness by the treat- 
ment prescribed by Sitting Bull for his followers. He 
required that each initiate, as well as those desiring 
to join the ghost-dancers, take a vapor-bath every 
morning, and this was accomplished by means of 
small, closely built lodges, in which the people col- 
lected, three or four at a time. Outside of the lodge 
a hole was dug in the ground, in which attendants 
heated small boulders, and thrust them into the lodge, 
together with a bucket of water, then closed all open- 
ings of the wickiup. The hot stones were sprinkled 
with water, thus creating a hot steam in the small 
lodge, and during this bath prayers were being sung 
continually. The bathers remained in the steam- 
heated tent as long as they could stand it, and were 
then dragged forth, nearly dead, to be anointed by the 
medicine man and then permitted to dance until they 
dropped ; and this daily performance, with very little 
food, had made them subjects for the madhouse. 

Obviously there would be no sense in attempting 
to talk to them in their present state, and I drove off 
to Bull Head's house, three miles away. 

At daylight next morning, I returned to Sitting 
Bull's camp. It was barely six o'clock when I arrived, 
Bull Head, Lieutenant of the Indian Police, riding 
beside the wagon in which Primeau and I rode. The 
camp was very quiet, but there were figures about the 
long row of wickiups in which the ghost-dancers were 
taking their vapor-baths. I entered Sitting Bull's 
[ 204 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

house and found his two wives and four of his chil- 
dren within. The women, very much excited, said 
that Sitting Bull was taking a bath, and offered to go 
and call him. They were told not to disturb him, as I 
would wait until he had finished his bath ; and after 
conversing with the family a few minutes, I left the 
house. As I turned the corner of the building, I came 
face to face with the old medicine man, who had 
seen me entering his cabin and came to learn why I 
was so early abroad. He was naked, but for a breech- 
cloth and moccasins, and he looked very thin and 
more subdued than I had ever seen him. He stopped 
and said, "How." 

"How," said I, and extended my hand, which he 
took, and I drew him toward the wagon and away 
from the cabin. He was handed a blanket, which he 
gathered around him, and stopped, sullen, but not 
fiercely insolent, as he had been with white people 
since the dancing had commenced. Other figures 
crept out of the wickiups in the early morning light 
and began to gather around us. Sitting Bull said no- 
thing, and I made up my mind that I would proceed 
at once to tell him what I had to say before the entire 
encampment could congregate and disturb us. 

"Look here. Sitting Bull," I began, "I want to 
know what you mean by your present conduct and 
utter disregard of department orders. Your preach- 
ing and practicing of this absurd Messiah doctrine is 
causing a great deal of uneasiness among the Indians 
of the reservation, and you should stop it at once." 

He was actually meek, and I thought perhaps he 
might be sincere in his religious fervor ; but his crafty 
eye dispelled that idea. Without giving him time to 
[ 205 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

talk, I recalled all my connection with him and showed 
him my friendly inclination. I recalled the time when 
he had sent word to me from Alberta, Canada, by 
Bishop Marty, to help him make his peace with the 
authorities before he surrendered ; I reminded him of 
the talk we had when he was a prisoner on the steamer 
General Sherman, leaving Fort Yates for Fort Randall 
in September, 1881, and how he had been given his 
liberty through following my advice. He mumbled 
some thanks when I told him of the time he had 
written to me from Fort Randall, and sent the let- 
ter by his brother-in-law. Gray Eagle, and adopted 
brother. Little Assiniboine, in which he had besought 
me to try and obtain his freedom and have him sent 
to Standing Rock reservation. And I went on, Indian- 
like, through the little list of things I had done for 
him at various times, and wound up by reproaching 
him for leading the people astray and setting them 
back for years, besides making it certain that they 
would all be punished. His eyes flashed, but the old 
fellow did not break out in a rage as I expected he 
might. On the contrary he seemed to be impressed 
at once, and when Yellow Otter's voice rose loud in 
excited protest, above the sneering of the crowd that 
had gathered about us, he turned on the speaker and 
ordered him to be silent. Then he indulged in a ha- 
rangue. He spoke only of the new faith, and how he 
believed in it and the good that it would bring to his 
people. I interrupted him to say that it would bring 
them all into trouble, and that he well knew it to be 
rubbish. He grew a little defiant and told me that I 
knew nothing about it. Then he changed his tune 
and said : — 

[ 206 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

"Father, I will make you a proposition which will 
settle this question. You go with me to the agencies 
to the West, and let me seek for the men who saw the 
Messiah ; and when we find them, I will demand that 
they show him to us, and if they cannot do so I will 
return and tell my people it is a lie." 

I told him that such an attempt would be like 
catching up with the wind that blew last year ; that he 
should come and spend a night with me at the agency, 
so that I might convince him of the absurdity of the 
doctrine he was practicing, through which he was 
misleading his over-credulous followers. 

This he would not do, but said : — 

"My heart inclines to do what you request, but I 
must consult my people. I would be willing to go with 
you now, but I cannot leave without the consent of 
my people. I will talk to the men to-night, and if they 
think it advisable I will go to the agency next Satur- 
day." 

I could get no further promise from him, and drove 
away, the crowd threatening and sneering, but held 
in check by the upraised arm of the old medicine man, 
standing almost naked in the bright but chilly morn- 
ing sunlight. Our talk had lasted about an hour, and 
I said nothing to Primeau, who accompanied me, nor 
did Primeau make any remark as we drove out of the 
camp, but I know that we both felt more comfortable 
when we got over a ridge of hills and out of rifle-range 
of the crazed throng of ghost-dancers. 

That was the last time that I saw Sitting Bull alive, 
for he sent word by Strikes- the- Kettle the following 
Saturday that he could not come to the agency, 

I reported this visit to the Department, and, being 
[ 207 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

quite convinced that Sitting Bull would not come in, I 
wrote, under date of November 19, recommending that 
the ghost-dancers be attacked in the weakest point 
of their religious armor — through their stomachs. 
My recommendation was that all Indians living on 
Grand River be notified that those wishing to be 
known as opposed to the ghost-doctrine, friendly to 
the government, and desiring the support provided 
for in the treaty, should report at the agency for en- 
rollment and be required to encamp near the agency 
for a few weeks, and that subsistence issues be with- 
held from those electing to remain on Grand River, 
continuing their medicine practices in violation of 
department orders. I was quite confident that such 
a course would soon have left Sitting Bull with but 
few followers, as all, or nearly all, would have reported 
for enrollment and rations, and he would thus have 
been forced to come in himself. 

I had no doubt then and have none now that, if 
this suggestion had been adopted, the ghost-dancing 
would have been broken up, for I knew the Indian 
well enough to be assured that a material meal would 
attract him far more effectually than a feast with the 
ghosts. The suggestion was not oflScially adopted, but 
events were crowding at Washington, and November 
20 I received this telegram : — 

"McLaughlin, Agent, — 

"If condition of affairs now and for future re- 
quires that leaders of excitement or fomenters of dis- 
turbance should be arrested and confined to insure 
quiet and good order among Indians, telegraph me 
names at once, so that assistance of military while 
< [ 208 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

operating to suppress any attempted outbreak may 
be had to make arrests. 

"R. V. Belt, 
"Acting Commissioner." 

I wired the names of the men whose arrest I had 
suggested the preceding June, adding the names of 
Iron White Man and Male Bear, but added that I 
thought it imprudent to attempt making the desired 
arrests at that time, and invited attention to my sug- 
gestion of the 19th. 

At that time the situation was well in hand, and if 
I could have chosen the time I could have arrested 
Sitting Bull without bloodshed. The plan was simple 
enough, it being the custom of the Indians of the en- 
tire reservation to congregate at the agency once every 
two weeks (every alternate Saturday) , to receive their 
rations, and on these issue-days Sitting Bull was 
practically alone at his camp on Grand River, forty 
miles from the agency. The police, under Lieutenant 
Bull Head, were absolutely to be depended upon and 
willing to do anything that would promote order. 
Lieutenant Bull Head, who lived about three miles 
west of the ghost-dance camp, was watching Sitting 
Bull and his followers and kept them under strict 
surveillance. The old chief could make no move that 
could not be anticipated, and the arrest could be made 
without difficulty, unless trouble was precipitated 
from the outside. And the threat came on us like a 
bolt from the blue, and though bloodshed was averted 
for the moment, I knew that affairs might get beyond 
control at any time. 

The threat took form in Colonel William F. Cody 
[ 209 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

(Buffalo Bill), who arrived at the agency on Novem- 
ber 28, with an order signed by General Miles, then 
division commander, directing military officers to 
supply Colonel Cody with whatever assistance was 
necessary in arresting Sitting Bull. It was not my af- 
fair, but I felt that I was responsible for the conduct 
of the Indians, and I knew that any attempt by out- 
side parties to arrest Sitting Bull would undoubtedly 
result in loss of life, as the temper of the ghost-dancers 
was not to be doubted. And upon Colonel Cody's 
arrival at the agency I sent the following telegram to 
Washington : — 

"Commissioner of Indian Affairs, — 

" William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) has arrived here 
with commission from Gen. Miles to arrest Sitting 
Bull. Such a step at present is unnecessary and unwise, 
as it will precipitate a fight which can be averted. A 
few Indians still dancing, but it does not mean mis- 
chief at present. I have matters well in hand, and 
when proper time arrives can arrest Sitting Bull by 
Indian police without bloodshed. I ask attention to 
my letter of November 19. Request Gen. Miles's 
order to Cody be rescinded and request immediate 
answer. 

"McLaughlin, Agent." 

I felt that I was justified in asking that the order 
of a general of division, who was not on the ground, 
should be rescinded. It was a bold step to take, but 
I could see nothing else to do. And I was still con- 
vinced that the arrest would be bloodless only if made 
on ration-day. The morning after Colonel Cody's 
[ 210 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

arrival he left the agency with a civilian escort for 
Sitting Bull's camp before any reply had been received 
to my telegram of the previous day. I had no disposi- 
tion to interpose my feeble authority to that of the 
military, on the contrary I had been cooperating fully 
with Colonel Drum, the commandant at Fort Yates ; 
but my telegram saved to the world that day a royal 
good fellow and most excellent showman, for General 
Miles's order was rescinded by telegraph, and Buffalo 
Bill was overtaken with the message and turned back 
before he reached Grand River. 

The Buffalo Bill incident was hardly disposed of 
before it was made clear that the future operations 
against the ghost-dancers were to be carried on at the 
direction of the military arm, and on December 1, 1 
received this telegram : — 

*' Washington, Dec. 1. 

"McLaughlin, Agent, 
" Standing Rock, — 
" By direction of the Secretary, during the present 
Indian troubles, you are instructed that while you 
shall continue all the business and carry into effect 
the educational and other purposes of your agency, 
you will, as to all operations intended to suppress any 
outbreak by force, cooperate with and obey the orders 
of the military oflScers commanding on the reservation 
in your charge. 

"R. V. Belt, 
"Acting Commissioner." 

It was evident that the military intended to arrest 
Sitting Bull, and I still had it in my mind that if I 
could make provision to make the arrest by the In- 
[211] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

dian police, at an opportune time and in my own way, 
there would be no necessity for shedding blood. I 
was absolutely convinced that, unless the arrest was 
made by surprise, there would be trouble. I tele- 
graphed the commissioner December 6, again, ask- 
ing if I was authorized to arrest Sitting Bull when I 
thought best, and got this reply : — 

"Washington, Dec. 6. 

** McLaughlin, Agent, — 

"Replying to your telegram of this date, Secretary 
directs that you make no arrests whatever, except 
under orders of the military, or upon an order from 
the Secretary of the Interior. 

"R. V. Belt, 
•^ "Acting Commissioner." 

General Ruger, then in command of the Depart- 
ment of Dakota, showed the utmost good-will and 
a desire to cooperate with the agency people, as the 
following telegram, referring to a message sent by him 
to Colonel Drum, the commanding officer at Fort 
Yates, demonstrates : — 

"St. Paul, Minn., Dec. 6. 

" U. S. Indian Agent, James McLaughlin, — 

"Referring to telegram sent to Col. Drum, which 
he will show you, is there any change of condition re- 
cently which makes present action specially necessary ? 
As you know I am disposed to support you. Some 
prior movements I would like to see completed. 

"Ruger, 
"Brigadier General, Commanding." 
[ 212 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

In reply I telegraphed General Ruger that there 
had been no material change in conditions; that the 
police could keep Sitting Bull on the reservation and 
arrest him when necessary, but that there was no 
urgent need for action. It was too late for action that 
day — which was beef- ration day — and I was still 
minded to stick to my original proposition that the 
arrest should be made while Sitting Bull was practi- 
cally alone at his camp. He had not been in for his 
rations since October 25. The dancing was still go- 
ing on, with cold weather — so usual at that season 
of the year, and which might have been depended on 
to cool the ardor of the dancers — still holding off. 

Sitting Bull was in constant communication with 
the Southern Sioux agencies, and it was becoming 
very certain that he was going to attempt to leave the 
reservation, and his escape had to be guarded against. 
The disaffected Indians at the agencies along the Mis- 
souri River, as well as those of Rosebud and Pine 
Ridge, would see in him a leader they might follow 
to a desperate purpose, and I was not going to permit 
him to decamp. In the Bad Lands there was gathered 
a considerable mass of Indians, eighteen hundred hav- 
ing stampeded from their homes when General Brook 
arrived at Pine Ridge with five companies of infantry 
and three troops of cavalry, part of which force he de- 
tached and sent to Rosebud. Big Foot and his band 
escaped after arrest by the military on the Cheyenne 
River reservation. Obviously it would not do to allow 
so cunning and malignant a leader as Sitting Bull to 
put himself at the head of these frightened or des- 
perate people. There is no doubt that many of the 
Indians who had taken to the Bad Lands were simply 
[213] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

frightened by the presence of the troops. But they 
were also tremendously excited, and in their stam- 
pede and flight destroyed much property belonging 
to themselves and others. I knew that Sitting Bull 
contemplated putting himself at the head of the fugi- 
tives, and that those who were merely frightened 
would soon be turned or coerced to acts of hostility 
under his guidance. 

Ninety per cent of the Standing Rock Indians con- 
tinued loyal, the police were devoted and vigilant, and 
only the Sitting Bull following gave promise of trouble. 

December 12 came the order for the arrest of Sit- 
ting Bull. It was in the form of a cipher telegram and 
follows, translated : — 

"To Commanding Officer, 
" Fort Yates, N. D., — 
"The division commander has directed that you 
make it your especial duty to secure the person of 
Sitting Bull. Call on Indian agent to cooperate and 
render such assistance as will best promote the pur- 
pose in view. Acknowledge receipt, and if not per- 
fectly clear, repeat back. 

"M. Barber, 
"Assistant Adjutant General. 

"Department op Dakota, 
"St. Paul, Minn., Dec. 12, 1890." 

Colonel Drum furnished me with a copy of the or- 
der, and upon conferring with him in reference to the 
arrest, we fully agreed on the course of procedure. 
Colonel Drum was quite of the same mind that I 
was about the necessity for making the arrest while 
[214] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

Sitting Bull's camp was practically deserted ; that it 
should be made by the Indian police, with the mili- 
tary supporting at a convenient distance, to aid the 
police in case of attempted rescue, and it was finally 
determined that the arrest should be made on the 
next ration-day, December 20, unless it was precipi- 
tated by Sitting Bull trying to leave the reservation. 
Lieutenant Bull Head, of the Indian police, who 
lived, as I have said, about three miles west of the 
ghost-dance camp, was given charge of the duty of 
keeping Sitting Bull under surveillance, with orders in- 
stantly to report any suspicious movements. He chose 
for his assistant First Sergeant Shave Head, a stout- 
hearted and intelligent man who could be depended 
upon in any emergency. They were to hold a con- 
siderable force of Indian police on the Grand River, 
adjacent to Sitting Bull's camp, and Sergeant Eagle- 
man was sent with eight additional policemen to Oak 
Creek, twenty miles south of the agency, that they 
might be within supporting distance if needed by the 
force on Grand River. 

About six o'clock in the evening of December 13, 
Bull Ghost came into the agency with a letter to me 
from Sitting Bull, his last utterance, full of defiance 
and implied threats, but so incoherent as to be diffi- 
cult to understand. It was written by Andrew Fox, 
Sitting Bull's son-in-law, who could speak English 
and write a little. It was addressed, " The Major at 
the Indian office." 

These portions I could decipher : — 

" I had a meeting with all my Indians to-day and am 
writing this order to you. . . . God made the red 
[215] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

race and the white, but the white higher. ... I wish 
no one to come to me in my prayers with gun or knife. 
. . . And you, my friend, to-day you think I am foil 
[fool] and you tell some of the wise men among my 
people ... so you don't like me. ... I don't like 
myself, my friend, when some one is foil. . . . You 
think if I am not here the Indians is civilization. . . . 
Also I will let you know something. I got to go to Pine 
Ridge agency, and to know this pray. So I let you 
know that and the policeman told me that you going 
to take all our ponies, guns too. So I want to let you 
know this. I want answer back soon. 

"Sitting Bull." 

While Sitting Bull was having this letter written, he 
was preparing to leave the reservation and his horses 
had been brought in. On the 14th, in the afternoon, 
special policeman Hawk Man brought me a letter 
from Bull Head, dated at Grand River at 12.50 a.m., 
and written by John M. Carignan, then teacher at the 
Grand River day-school, now manager of a trader's 
store at Fort Yates, informing me that Sitting Bull was 
getting ready to leave the reservation and action must 
be taken at once; that his horses had been doing 
nothing for several weeks, being well fed all the time; 
and that, being thus better mounted than the Indian 
police, if he got started, they would be unable to over- 
take the party or prevent them from reaching the Bad 
Lands, where the main body of the disaffected Sioux 
had congregated. Colonel Drum, the post commander, 
having seen the courier passing his quarters, and 
being anxious to learn the latest news from the Sitting 
Bull camp, came into my office while I was reading 
[216] 




LIKITEXANT 141 LL HEAD IX INlJlA.N ( USTIMK 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

the letter, and upon being informed of its contents 
concluded that the arrest should be made the next 
morning. I was anxious that the arrest should be 
made by the police, because otherwise it was not pos- 
sible without bloodshed; and for the further reason 
that the arrest being made by the police would have a 
salutary effect upon the Indians in general. Colonel 
Drum heartily agreed with me in this view of the case, 
and it was determined that two troops of the Eighth 
Cavalry, numbering one hundred men, with Captain 
E. G. Fechet in command, should leave Fort Yates at 
midnight in order to arrive at the Oak Creek crossing 
of the Sitting Bull road by 6.30 of the 15th, to support 
the police if necessary ; and before Colonel Drum left 
my office, I wrote the following letter in English, with 
a translation of it in Sioux, ordering the arrest of 
Sitting Bull, which I sent to Lieutenant Bull Head by 
Second Sergeant Red Tomahawk. 

"Standing Rock Agency, N.D., 
"Dec. 14, 1890. 

"Lieut. Bull Head, or Sergt. Shave Head, 
"Grand River, — 
*'From reports brought by Scout Hawk Man I 
believe that the time has arrived for the arrest of 
Sitting Bull and that it can be made by the Indian 
police without much risk. I therefore desire you to 
make the arrest before daylight to-morrow morning, 
and try and get back to the Sitting Bull road cross- 
ing of Oak Creek by daylight to-morrow morning 
or as soon thereafter as possible. The Cavalry will 
leave to-night and reach the Sitting Bull crossing of 
Oak Creek before daylight to-morrow morning (Mon- 
[217] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

day), where they will remain until they hear from 
you. 

" Louis Primeau will accompany the Cavalry com- 
mand as guide, and I desire you to send a messenger 
to the Cavalry as soon as you can after making the 
arrest, so that the troops may know how to act in 
aiding you or preventing any attempt of his followers 
from rescuing him. 

"I have ordered all the police at Oak Creek to 
proceed to Carignan's school and await your orders. 
This gives you a force of forty-two policemen for the 
arrest. 

"Very respectfully, 

"James McLaughlin, 
"U. S. Indian Agent. 

" P. S. You must not let him escape under any cir- 
cumstances." 

These orders, in duplicate, were, as before stated, 
given to Sergeant Red Tomahawk, a man who could 
be depended upon to get through with them, and who 
did so and signally distinguished himself the next 
morning. The verbal instructions given Red Toma- 
hawk as to assembling the scattered detachments of 
the Indian police were complete. 

Thirty-nine regular policemen and four specials, 
under Bull Head and Shave Head, rode into the Sitting 
Bull camp at early dawn the next morning. Some of 
the men had traveled immense distances to rendez- 
vous at the home of Lieutenant Bull Head, and all 
were firmly determined to make the arrest. Sitting 
Bull's band lived in houses stretching along the Grand 
[218] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

River for a distance of four or five miles. About the 
home of the chief, consisting of two houses and a cor- 
ral, there were a half-dozen log-cabins of good size. 
Many of the houses were deserted, the Indians having 
been engaged in dancing the greater part of the pre- 
vious night. The entrance of the policemen awakened 
the camp, but they saw no one, as Bull Head wheeled 
his men between the Sitting Bull houses and ordered 
them to dismount. Ten policemen, headed by Bull 
Head and Shave Head, entered one of the houses, 
eight policemen the other. In the house entered by 
Bull Head's party they found the old medicine man, 
his two wives, and Crow Foot his son, a youth of sev- 
enteen years. 

The women were very much frightened and began 
to cry. Sitting Bull sat up and asked what was the 
matter. 

" You are under arrest and must go to the agency," 
said Bull Head. 

** Very well," said Sitting Bull, " I will go with you." 
And he told one of his wives to go to the other house 
and bring him his best clothes. He showed no concern 
at his arrest, but evidently wanted to make a good 
impression and dressed himself with some care. He 
had also asked that his best horse, a gray one, be sad- 
dled, and an Indian policeman had the animal at the 
door by the time Sitting Bull was dressed and ready 
to leave. 

There had been no trouble in the house, and the 
police, when they walked out, were surprised at the 
extent of the demonstration. They came out of the 
building in a little knot. Bull Head on one side of 
Sitting Bull, Shave Head on the other, and Red Toma- 
[ 219 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

hawk directly behind. They had been twenty minutes 
or more in Sitting Bull's house, and it was in the gray 
of the morning when they came out. They stepped 
out into a mass of greatly excited ghost-dancers, nearly 
all armed and crowding about the main body of the 
police, who had held the way clear at the door. As 
Sitting Bull stepped out with his captors he walked 
directly toward the horse, with the evident intention of 
mounting and accompanying the police. He was some 
distance from the door when his son. Crow Foot, see- 
ing that the old man intended to make no resistance, 
began to revile him : — 

" You call yourself a brave man and you have de- 
clared that you would never surrender to a blue-coat, 
and now you give yourself up to Indians in blue uni- 
forms," the young man shouted. 

The taunt hit Sitting Bull hard. He looked into the 
mass of dark, excited faces, and commenced to talk 
volubly and shrilly, and there was a menacing move- 
ment in the crowd. 

The last moment of Sitting Bull's life showed him 
in a better light, so far as physical courage goes, than 
all the rest of it. He looked about him and saw his 
faithful adherents — about one hundred and sixty 
crazed ghost-dancers — who would have gone through 
fire at his bidding ; to submit to arrest meant the end 
of his power and his probable imprisonment ; he had 
sure news from Pine Ridge that he, only, was needed 
to head the hostiles there in a war of extermination 
against the white settlers. He made up his mind to 
take his chance, and screamed out an order to his 
people to attack the police. 

Instantly Catch-the-Bear and Strikes- the- Kettle, 
[ 220 ] 



THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL 

who were in the front rank of the crowd, fired at point- 
blank range, Catch-the-Bear mortally wounding First 
Lieutenant Bull Head, and Strikes-the- Kettle shooting 
First Sergeant Shave Head in the abdomen. Lieu- 
tenant Bull Head was a few yards to the left and front 
of Sitting Bull when hit, and immediately wheeling, 
he shot Sitting Bull through the body, and at the same 
instant Second Sergeant Red Tomahawk, who with 
revolver in hand was rear-guard, shot him in the 
right cheek, killing him instantly ; the lieutenant, the 
first sergeant, and Sitting Bull falling together. 

Sitting Bull's medicine had not saved him, and the 
shot that killed him put a stop forever to the domi- 
nation of the ancient regime among the Sioux of the 
Standing Rock reservation. 

The tale of the bloody fight that ensued has been 
told, and the world knows how those thirty-nine 
Indian policemen, with four of their relatives who 
volunteered to accompany them, — a total of forty- 
three in all, — fought off one hundred and sixty 
ghost-dancers, eight of whom were killed and five 
wounded; how second Sergeant Red Tomahawk, 
after the two higher ranking police officers had been 
mortally wounded, took command and drove the In- 
dians to the timber; how Hawk Man No. 1 ran 
through a hail of bullets to get the news to the cavalry 
detachment, and how six faithful friends of the whites, 
policemen of the Standing Rock reservation, laid 
down their lives in doing their duty that morning. 
Two days later, on December 17, 1900, we buried 
Shave Head and four other Indian policemen with 
military honors in the cemetery at Standing Rock, 
[ 221 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

and, while Captain Miner's entire company of the 
Twenty-Second U. S. Infantry fired three volleys over 
the graves of these red heroes, and a great concourse 
of the Sioux of the reservation stood in the chill bright 
sunlight of a fair winter's day, mourning aloud for 
their dead, I quietly left the enclosure and joined a 
little burial-party in the military cemetery at Fort 
Yates, situated about five hundred yards south of the 
agency cemetery. Four military prisoners dug the 
grave, and in the presence of A. R. Chapin, Assistant 
Surgeon, U. S. A., H. M. Deeble, Acting Assistant 
Surgeon, U. S. A., Lieutenant P. G. Wood, U. S. A., 
Post Quartermaster, now Brigadier General, retired, 
and myself, the body of Sitting Bull, wrapped in 
canvas and placed in a coflBn, was lowered into the 
grave. 



CHAPTER XIII 
HOW THE INDIAN GETS HIS NAME 

A Queer System of Nomenclature which gives the Red Man some 

Untranslatable Titles. 

WHEN Rain-in-the-Face was but a brown- 
skinned mite, the mother of the mite set 
him up in the shade of a tree while she got 
ready the midday meal of her lord, the father of Rain- 
in-the-Face. The boy baby was strapped to a board, 
his small body embedded in the fuzz of the cat- tails and 
wound about with the skin of a deer. Erect and stiff, 
but comfortable enough, the boy lay, dodging his 
head that he might see past the hooped bough that 
was bent over his face so that he might not be marred 
in his looks if he should fall. And as he looked at the 
sky and communed, after the fashion of Sioux babies, 
with the spirits of the other world, the thunder-bird 
settled in the limb of a nearby tree and a shower fell. 
The mother, engaged in her domestic work, forgot the 
child for the moment, and a neighbor ran into the 
tepee to tell her it had rained in the face of her baby. 
The mother seized the strapped youngster and bore 
him into the tent, chattering endearments after the 
fashion of Sioux mothers, and wiped the moisture 
from the face of the little round-eyed baby with the 
palm of her brown hand. The father of the child 
looked up from his reclining-place, fashioned of 
withes and fastened to two uprights and then to 
r 223 1 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

pegs in the ground, — a most comfortable easy-chair, 
— and said : — 

"It is a sign. Let him be called Rain-in-the-Face." 

The soft Sioux syllables in which the name of the 
child was pronounced may not be rendered in vulgar 
English, but they sounded good to the mother, and 
the father, proud of his inventive inspiration, pro- 
claimed the boy's name and made a feast, as he had 
on other occasions when he named the five brothers 
who had preceded Rain-in-the-Face into the world, 
and who called him father, but who were not all nur- 
tured at the same mother's breast. 

Thus it was that so trivial a thing as a summer 
shower gave to a chief of the Hunkpapa Sioux a name 
that is not unknown, and there was, until September, 
1905, an old man sitting by the door of his house on 
the Standing Rock reservation who would answer to 
the name and say that many great men of the white 
race called him friend — which was true enough, for, 
since the Sioux put away the tomahawk and forgot 
the warpath, their head men and chiefs have come 
to be highly regarded by the sub-chiefs of the Great 
Father. 

Indian nomenclature has always had a fascination 
for the English-speaking people of this country, and 
has afforded a fine field for the smaller wits. The boys 
of a generation ago will remember how they rolled 
with boyish relish the names of the redskin heroes. Red 
Horse, Blue Dog, and Ghost -that -comes -Out, on 
their tongues, and felt that worthies with such names 
must needs be famous warriors. Later in life they 
came to conceive the idea that these appellations 
were born of the imagination of the novel-writer. As 
[ 224 ] 



HOW THE INDIAN GETS HIS NAME 

a matter of fact, the names are common enough, and 
there have undoubtedly been many Red Horses and 
Blue Dogs among the Indians. As for the varia- 
tions on Ghost, they are so manifold as to be quite 
without the possibility of enumeration. White Ghost, 
Gray Ghost, Bull's Ghost, and Ghost-that- Runs are 
Sioux names that have been attached to official papers, 
and it is to be expected that Ghost should be common 
enough in the designation of a people who frequently 
take their names from dreams and who dream much 
of the shadowy people who have gone before. 

But the commoner names of Indians generally have 
reference to personal attributes or achievements or 
experiences. It does not follow that the constant 
recurrence of the use of animal names has direct ref- 
erence to the constant engagement of Indians in the 
chase. Ordinarily the use of the designation of the 
bear or the eagle or the horse is the house, or family, 
totem. A family will take for its totem the bear or 
the beaver, and to that house the animal so chosen 
is sacred, and the members of the family are recog- 
nized as belonging to the particular clan indicated. 
It was customary to use this family or house designa- 
tion as a part of the cognomen, however, and the prac- 
tice of avoiding mention of the personal name in the 
presence of the individual bearing it, is undoubtedly 
the reason for the common use of the terms brother, 
father, mother, among persons not at all related. 
This latter practice has led to a queer jumbling of the 
degrees of relationship, and the Indian of to-day even 
will call his cousin his brother or his sister, and any 
person whom he holds in particular esteem, his father, 
or mother. A great deal of trouble has been met in 
[ 225 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

establishing actual relationship by reason of this cus- 
tom. 

It is not an uncommon thing for an Indian to bear 
during different periods of his life several names, as 
progressive events dominate his experiences. Among 
the Sioux it is a common practice to call the first-born, 
if a son, Caska (Chaska), or Winona, if a daughter, 
and designate additions to the family in the numeri- 
cal order of their arrival. In the bestowal of these in- 
fantile names there is no ceremony, and many youth- 
ful Indians have struggled through early life without 
any sort of name, except the designation of the son 
or daughter of So-and-So when occasion required. 

The bestowal of names among those Indians who 
used a common designation was formerly accompanied 
by a religious ceremonial and dance, but the practice 
has fallen into disuse. Among the Sioux there is no 
family patronymic whatever and it is conceivable 
that the greatest difficulty will be had in tracing fami- 
lies with a view to determining what designation shall 
be given members of one house. The work of giving 
the Sioux fixed and official names is now going on, and 
wide latitude is taken by the enrolling official. I do 
not know of a better example of the difficulty presented 
than in the case of the family of brothers to which 
Rain-In-The-Face belonged. There were six brothers 
in the family, and the name of the grandfather of these 
worthies is already lost in the mists of Indian an- 
tiquity — which is a mere matter of yesterday. The 
eldest of the brothers was Bear's Face ; the others, in 
the order of seniority, were Red Thunder, Iron Horn, 
Little Bear, Rain-in-the-Face, and Shave Head. 
They were men of prominence, and each one of them 
[ 226 ] 




KAIN-IN-THE-FACE 



HOW THE INDIAN GETS HIS NAME 

who left children will be regarded as the founder of 
a family, and his children will carry his name with 
a prefix, as John Bear's Face, Mary Red Thunder, 
Charles Shave Head. It is optional with the official 
making the new enrollment to take the more appro- 
priate or euphonious of the names of the brothers and 
make that the family name, — obviously a difficult 
matter in the case of these kindred families, each head 
being entitled to consideration as the founder of a dis- 
tinct house, and there being nothing particularly eu- 
phonious in the English rendition of any of the names. 

Many years ago, seeing the necessity for giving the 
people living at Standing Rock family designations, 
I undertook, as agent, the work that has recently been 
taken up by the Indian office. The Indians took kindly 
enough to the official designations given them arbi- 
trarily but in accord with good sense. Gray Eagle, 
for instance, had several children. I gave those of 
them who did not possess a baptismal name an Eng- 
lish name, then wrote the father's name in one word, 
Grayeagle, and the thing was done. And this practice 
I put into effect generally, retaining the English trans- 
lation of the Indian name and making one word of it 
wherever possible. The rolls at Standing Rock agency 
were found to be practically complete when the en- 
rolling official began his work there, the people being 
enrolled as families. 

The utter impossibility of adhering to the English 
rendition of many of the Indian names is obvious 
enough, but in these cases it is nearly always possible 
to adopt the Sioux version, or some contraction of it 
that will serve to preserve a suggestion of the origin 
and retain in its proper place some reminiscence of the 
[ 227 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

peculiar structure of the Indian nomenclature. It 
would be nothing less than an outrage to impose ar- 
bitrarily the name of Sam Jones upon a man whose 
father had distinguished himself as Young- Man- 
Afraid-of-His-Horses ; still, the impossibility of retain- 
ing the English form of the Indian name is plain, — 
Tasunka-Kokipapi, the Sioux rendition of the name, 
being vastly different in its meaning from the translated 
form, and some contraction of it might be retained. 

And this brings me to one feature of the Indian no- 
menclature that is worthy of attention — the mislead- 
ing character of the translations. Tasunka-Kokipapi 
is by no means to be rendered " Young- Man- Afraid- 
-of-his-Horses. " I do not know that the translator 
could have gone much further astray from the mean- 
ing of the name, if he had tried. The name implies 
a tribute of great esteem on the part of the Indian 
for the man who bore it, the meaning of Tasunka- 
Kokipapi indicating one whose capacity in battle was 
such that the mere sight of his horses inspired fear 
in his enemies. Many of the Indian names are quite 
as far removed in their original application from the 
meaning conveyed by the translation as the appella- 
tion cited. 

The simplest events and the most remote and least 
understood manifestations of nature, personal attri- 
butes of mind and the most vulgar of actions, physical 
beauty and physical prowess, all these are drawn upon 
to supply the Indians with names ; yet the variety and 
appositeness of meaning of the names proves the pos- 
session of an imagination that does not suffer by com- 
parison with that of the cultured races. The vulgarity 
of many of the appellations is in the translation only, 
[ 228 ] 



HOW THE INDIAN GETS HIS NAME 

though the Indian is rather prone to call a spade a 
spade. It is worthy of note, too, that the names of 
women, with which the English-speaking people are 
not so familiar as with the names of men, are quite 
frequently indicative of a poetic fancy and contain 
real beauty. And this is almost directly traceable 
to the fact that the translations have been made by 
teachers in the boarding-schools, sisters of the mis- 
sion teaching- staff, or women teachers in the other 
schools. There is a range of fancy that bespeaks lov- 
ing care or inspiration in the selection of the name of 
Beautiful- Voiced Antelope, and it rather jolted my 
fancy when I found that the lady so designated was 
fated to be styled on the rolls of the white man as Mrs. 
Bad Bull. 

It is a regrettable fact that many of the women who 
enjoy names the mere mention of which suggests 
feminine daintiness, do not look the part suggested 
by the name. One of the least prepossessing of the 
Indian women in my recollection was called Beautiful 
Fawn. On the other hand, there is real appreciation 
— in the Indian method of expression — in the name 
given a woman of the Hunkpapa, Beautiful White 
Cow. She must have been a fine-looking woman in 
her youth, but she is Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull now, 
and there is no incongruity between her name and 
her position as a widow. 

Obviously the names of the women are applied in 
a complimentary sense. They very rarely suggest an 
event, but nearly always indicate an attribute, poetic 
or other, and suggest a very warm imagination and 
wide license on the part of the sponsor. There was at 
Devils Lake agency, in my time, a man called Beau- 
[ 229 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

tiful-Voice-at-the- Water. He came by the name by 
reason of the fact that, as a child, he was given to de- 
claring that he could hear a voice calling him from 
the lake — and no Indian would think of disputing 
anything in the line of the supernatural regarding Dev- 
ils Lake, its waters, and the mysterious country sur- 
rounding it. The place teemed with mystic sounds, 
symbols, and signs for the Indians. A certain poverty 
in the English rendition spoils the poetry of the Indian 
feminine name, because many of them are necessarily 
translated with the prefix of "beautiful" or "pretty," 
neither word quite conveying the meaning of the va- 
riously applied "was- te" (pronounced washta). Pretty 
Day, Pretty Dawn, and Pretty Star are English ver- 
sions of names that really mean a great deal more than 
is conveyed by the inane word "pretty." 

In the soft accents of the Sioux syllables there is 
much beauty when their accents are accommodated 
to pronounce the name of a woman, and it is to be 
hoped that the Indian names will be preserved so far 
as possible in fixing the designations of the copper- 
colored clubwomen of the future. Of the names purely 
fanciful, or having an exaggerated poetic suggestion, 
I know of few more truly feminine than Mini-ate-ho- 
waste-win. Beautiful- Voice-at-the- Water, and I would 
register now a protest against the corruption of this 
into the almost inevitable Minnie. Wiyan- Waste 
sounds in the Sioux as though it might describe a 
pretty woman, and it is literally, "Pretty Woman," 
a common enough name. Tipi- Waste- Win is a tribute 
to the woman's housewifery and means Pretty Lodge- 
Woman. An appreciation of an ornament belonging 
to a girl might readily procure for her a name — as 
[ 230 ] 



HOW THE INDIAN GETS HIS NAME 

in the case of Pompeska- Waste- Win, Pretty Shell- 
Woman ; and a girl who was a " cute" baby was given 
the name of Onk-to-mi-Ska-win, White Spider. There 
is a poverty of imagination suggested in the name of 
Scarlet Day, applied to a woman, but it is not a rare 
designation, though it sounds much better in the 
Sioux — An-patu-Duta-win. The name arose from 
the fact that the bearer of it was first called Day, and 
then given the qualification because the sponsor was 
desirous of conveying the idea that the child w^as 
lovely — scarlet being the most highly prized of the 
colors and calculated to gladden the eye. That the 
Indian did not always condescend to frivolous compli- 
ment in naming his female relatives is demonstrated 
by the fact that the name Wamb-duska is common 
enough and is not nearly so pretty as the sound might 
imply, meaning Snake. 

Sitting Bull came by his name, as previously stated, 
by right of succession and by a means not rare. He 
was called as a boy Jumping Badger, his father's 
name being Sitting Bull. While still a boy he distin- 
guished himself in the field, and his father, making 
a feast, solemnly transferred his name to his hopeful 
son. This feast incidental to the bestowal of a name 
is one of the features of the social life of the Indian. 
Any Indian will regard it a mark of distinction to 
be invited to give a name to his neighbor's child. I 
have not observed that there is any ceremonial rite 
attaching to the function ; it is simply a gathering of 
the families at a feast, and the bestowal of the child's 
name is merely an incident to the feast. Speaking of 
Sitting Bull reminds me, somehow, of the name of a 
man of good heart and distinguished title, — Shell 
[231 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

King, Pompeska-yatapi, and how fortune frequently 
favored Sitting Bull, even as it did when he won the 
right to bear his father's name by his sharpness. 

Shell King was a man of prominence at Standing 
Rock agency, and stood opposed to the baneful in- 
fluence of Sitting Bull. He had been out with the 
hostile chief, but had left him, and came in under 
Crow King. One day, after the return of Sitting Bull 
from his imprisonment at Fort Randall, in the spring 
of 1884, Shell King met Sitting Bull in my office at the 
agency. Sitting Bull was inclined to sneer at Shell 
King for the latter's evident disposition to behave him- 
self. He jeered at him for so easily adapting himself 
to the ways of the white man and doing the bidding 
of the officials. Shell King retorted in a fashion that 
astonished me and awed the listening Indians. He 
told Sitting Bull that he was a coward and that he had 
led his people into misfortune, causing them the loss 
of their arms and horses, and many hardships he 
charged to him ; adding that the days of his dominion 
were over and that the people might act as they liked 
without consulting him. This defense elicited mys- 
terious threats from Sitting Bull. Ten days later Shell 
King and one of his sons were killed by lightning, and 
the event had a tremendous effect in restoring the 
waning prestige of the old medicine chief, to whose 
influence it was credited. 

Grass, the name of the ablest orator and most in- 
fluential surviving chief of the Sioux, is the hereditary 
patronymic of a line of chieftains. The line will die 
out with the present possessor of the name, John 
Grass, who has no sons living, — his son, young 
John Grass, who was a bright young man, having died 
[ 232 ] 



HOW THE INDIAN GETS HIS NAME 

some years ago when about twenty-eight years of age. 
Grass, the father of the present John Grass, was a 
chief of the Blackfeet Sioux and a man of wide in- 
fluence. He was a friend to the whites always and was 
himself a chief by descent. The headship of the band 
went to his eldest son, and to him the army officers 
gave the Christian name of John, so long ago that it 
was fixed upon him long before I became acquainted 
with the man. The Indian version of Grass is Piji, 
and John Grass is so called by his people. 

Gall, the warrior chief of the Hunkpapas, was 
called Pizi, literally Gall. The meaning of the name 
was misconceived by the earlier translators, and when 
I knew him first his name was written by the whites 
as Gaul. This I corrected. He got the name as a 
boy, his mother bestowing it when she found him one 
day eking out his uncommon short rations by dis- 
cussing the gall of the animal killed by one of their 
neighbors. 

Whatever of distinction attaches to the name of 
Gall was attained by himself, who led the fighting 
men of the Sioux at the battle of the Little Big Horn. 
Gall's paternity was not distinguished, and he was 
a waif, brought up in the lodges of his people by a 
widowed mother. He became a chief by force of his 
personality. 

Big Head, a man of some distinction among his 
people, will suffer in history by reason of the weak- 
ness of the interpreter who first gave his name to the 
whites. He was named not Big Head, but Big Brain, 
in compliment to his intellectual capacity, and a poor 
translator gave him the name he is known by. So also 
in the case of another Indian who will go down to 
[ 233 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

fame as Big Road. His Indian name was Broad Trail, 
but an interpreter of limited vocabulary sheared him 
of his more euphonious title. 

Spotted Tail, a noted chief of the Brule Sioux, suf- 
fered necessarily in the translation of his name, which 
sounds much more imposing in the original form of 
Sinte-Gleska. I have heard that he took the name 
from a peculiarity of a favorite pony of his boyhood. 

A favorite horse was frequently the source of the 
Indian's name. Red Horse, Blue-Haired Horse, and 
High Horse being well-known Sioux names. Little 
Wound was a Sioux chief whose appellation suggests 
the injury that bestowed it ; while a physical charac- 
teristic was obviously responsible for the designation 
of Wasicun-Waukautuya — Tall White Man. Crazy 
Walking, a judge of the Indian court at Standing 
Rock, took his name from his gait, and Running Holy 
combined a religious tendency with a disposition for 
swift movements. Afraid-of-Soldier is another Indian 
who suffered in his name by the translation, for his 
Sioux title indicated that the soldiers feared him, and 
should be translated, Their- Soldiers-fear- Him. 

Not infrequently the feminine influence dominated 
in giving a man or a boy his name, and there was 
no end of Good Boys and Bad Boys. Very recently I 
was present at an Indian dance at the Sisseton agency, 
a leading part in which was taken by a very ancient 
personage who was known on the roll as Bad Baby. 
He was at least seventy-five years of age. At Stand- 
ing Rock there is a man named Married- to- Santee- 
Woman, a designation that does not help the Indian 
reputation for imagery in his nomenclature. 

The universe is drawn upon in the naming of the 
[ 234 ] 



HOW THE INDIAN GETS HIS NAME 

Indian. The sun, the moon and its phases, the stars, 
the animal kingdom, the physical forms of the earth, 
the birds of the air, and the fishes of the rivers and 
lakes have all contributed to the naming of them, 
and it is a matter of regret that the exigencies of the 
times will presently snuff out this romantic feature of 
Indian life. But the utter impossibility of a person 
named He Dog attaining success as the leader of 
cotillions will appeal to the greatest stickler for the 
preservation of Indian names. I believe, however, 
that a great part of the individual nomenclature of 
the Indians may be preserved in case the custom I 
adopted at Standing Rock is generally, and wherever 
possible, followed, and names formed by eliminating 
the hyphens in compound names. 

The Indian himself will presently begin to feel the 
need of a simpler system, now that he has come to 
understand that he cannot get along by adopting the 
persons he is talking to into his family. Among them- 
selves the aborigines still use the terms of relation- 
ship — and that often without regard to the degree 
of consanguinity. In addressing others, he will men- 
tion his own name, speaking in the third person, but 
will call his hearers father, mother, brother, cousin, 
brother-in-law, son, and daughter. They are very 
fond of their relatives generally, though the brother- 
in-law seems to have the greatest portion of the esteem 
of the Indian, and is the only one of his relatives with 
whom he can joke and who is supposed to take the 
jokes in good part. The brother-in-law is also supposed 
to stand in the relation of providence to the needy, 
and to be ready at any time to sacrifice himself and 
his goods for the behoof of the man who married his 
[ 235 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

sister. And the term grandfather is held in such venera- 
tion that the Sioux have no other name to designate 
the rock which serves the purpose of an altar in cer- 
tain rites, and upon which the most solemn oaths are 
taken. 



CHAPTER XIV 
INDIAN SYMPATHIES 

Ghosts and Devils enter largely into the Simple Faith of the Red Man. 

IT is " bad medicine" to ask an Indian of the Sioux 
nation — or of any other tribe, for the matter of 
that — if he is sick. He is likely to become im- 
pressed with the idea that the question is inspired by 
the bad spirit, or that the person asking is by way of 
working a spell on him. There is no sort of doubt 
that the mere asking of this question, which among 
whites might be regarded as being inspired by kindly 
solicitude, has caused many a man of the Teton 
Sioux to take to his bed, or what answers him for a 
bed, and make ready for his latter end. I have no 
doubt that many have died of an imaginary illness 
brought on in this fashion. And many of them have 
thought better of it when the external evidences of 
their coming decease were brought before them. But 
they prepare for death with much more elaboration 
of detail than they prepare for a birth or a marriage. 
Indeed, in his native state the Indian gave no thought 
at all to the imminence of a birth, and very little to a 
coming marriage. But when death impends, it is not 
only the fated victim who makes ready, but all his 
relatives and friends go into the matter with some 
spirit, and ease the poor man and his family of any 
little tangible property they may be possessed of, to the 
[ 237 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

end that they may not be distracted in their grief by 
earthly concerns. 

To be as "sick as a dog" but feebly expresses 
a condition of desperate health. One might declare 
he was "sick as an Indian," and mean something. 
I have always consistently forborne to make light in 
any way of the fancies of the Indian. He is a grown-up 
child in his regard for the things that he does not 
understand. To him the earth, the skies, the wa- 
ters — every animal, bird, and fish, all created things 
— stand for that which he does not understand and 
which he, therefore, endows with supernatural attri- 
butes. The animals are his brothers, and that ani- 
mal which is the totem of his house or clan he regards 
with veneration, and will under no circumstances kill 
or take for food. Living for centuries under condi- 
tions which filled the night with menace to his safety, 
he has come to people the darkness with the ghosts 
of his forefathers, and no amount of physical courage 
will bring the average uncultured Indian to move 
about in the dark with ease of mind. This constant 
thought of the unseen powers has had an important 
bearing on the development of Indian character. His 
fear of death is a purely physical manifestation, — 
the repugnance of the flesh, — for he regards the put- 
ting off of the mortal parts, under proper conditions, 
as a means of promotion to his idea of bliss ; a happy 
land wherein the ghosts of men hunt the ghosts of 
buffaloes, in a country where the climate is altogether 
desirable and the game plenty. The Indian is rather 
shy of trying to go too far into a field that he does not 
understand, and he simply will not consider the ques- 
tion, whether the slaying by the ghost of a man of the 
[ 238 ] 



INDIAN SYMPATHIES 

ghost of the buffalo puts an end to the animal ghost, 
or whether there is born at once the ghost of a buffalo 
ghost. 

The higher criticism is not part of the Indian's 
field of exploitation. He has some idea of a hell, but 
I am convinced that this is borrowed from the white 
man. It is undefined, seldom referred to, and is de- 
scribed according to the location on earth of the In- 
dian. If he happens to have his being in a climatic 
condition wherein the cold weather causes him the 
most physical discomfort, his hell is a place where 
winter reigns perpetual, where game cannot live, and 
the horrors of a fireless tepee are ever present. If he 
happens to live in a hot arid country, his hell is a place 
of eternal heat, where grass cannot grow, and of great 
scarcity of water. 

To this hell the Indian consigns only his enemies. 
His moral code is not so adjusted as to be sustained 
by the system of rewards and punishments prescribed 
by the believers in the religions of oriental origin. In 
his simple way he arranges a heaven to his liking, for 
his own occupation, and does away with the necessity 
for carrying his troubles beyond the grave, by send- 
ing his enemies to hell. 

The Indian is by no means an ancestor-worshiper. 
He acknowledges that the ghosts are having a joyous 
time, and he has a great regard for those ghosts in the 
abstract, but he does not desire to see or hear from 
them while he is still in the flesh. And, as I have no 
disposition to invade the field so earnestly cultivated 
by the learned gentlemen who have provided the In- 
dian with a system of theology and a rich mythology, 
— which will assuredly astound the Indian when he 
[ 239 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

is far enough advanced in the arts of civiHzation to 
become acquainted with these of his beliefs by reading 
the books of the white man, — I will avoid attempt- 
ing to go into abstractions on aboriginal beliefs. This 
much it may be permitted to say : the ceremonial re- 
ligious rites of the Indian, the few myths he knows of, 
his idea of hell and other essential attributes of what 
may be called his religious system, — if so indefinite 
a thing may be called a system, — all these things sug- 
gested to me long ago that he is largely indebted to the 
earlier white missionaries for these amplifications of 
an original faith which had no depth other than a be- 
lief in a good spirit who might be depended on to ex- 
ert a benign influence, — and who, therefore, required 
no propitiation, — and an evil spirit, variously mani- 
fested, that must be propitiated by sacrifice or circum- 
vented by artifice. I have not studied Indian beliefs 
deeply, but I have heard of many myths attributed to 
the Indians, and I never yet knew an Indian to hold 
to one that was not analogous to some fabled story of 
our own classics. It has always seemed to me that 
the white men who first associated with the Indian, 
entertained their red friends by telling them stories 
that would appeal to their undeveloped minds, and 
that, to do this, the story-tellers drew on the stores of 
their own memories. The Indian myth is simply the 
classic fable fitted to local conditions. 

All of which is beside the subject-matter. 

The Indian mother puts ashes on the mouth of her 
babe to keep the child from being occupied or influ- 
enced by the spirit-friends from whose company he 
has lately come. The Indian of mature years, wise 
according to his lights, puts food and drink close to the 
[ 240 ] 



INDIAN SYMPATHIES 

grave of his dead relative, to keep the newly made 
ghost from bothering about the village at night, — 
this quite as much as with a view to providing the 
departed with provision for his trip to the happy 
spirit-land. The closer the Indian is to nature, the 
more nearly is he a spiritualist, and the fakirs among 
the medicine men frequently pretend to be in cor- 
respondence with the spirits. Sitting Bull professed 
to receive messages from the spirits by means of per- 
sons who had become unconscious through the rigors 
of the prescribed rites during the ghost-dancing craze. 

It has frequently happened that the elaboration 
with which an Indian approaches death, and the free- 
dom from mental cares that follows upon the com- 
pletion of the preparations, effects a cure of the bodily 
ailments from which he has been suffering. I was 
reminded of a case in point during my last visit to 
Standing Rock, when an old Indian woman, nearly 
blind and very infirm, called to talk to Mrs. McLaugh- 
lin about her troubles. Arrow Woman was the name 
we knew her by, years ago when my wife taught her 
how to cook and care for a house. She was working 
in the agency kitchen in 1882, and rapidly becoming 
an expert in domestic affairs, and we thought very 
well of her. One day an Indian gossip arrived at the 
back door of the house and told Arrow Woman that 
her uncle was dead. She sat herself down in the midst 
of her pots and pans and gave herself up to mourn- 
ing. My wife inquired what the matter was, and 
Arrow Woman told her that her heart was broken, — 
her uncle was dead. She had only gotten the news 
from an Indian gossip, and I did not believe it was 
[ 241 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

true. I sent out and found that the old man was alive, 
and told Arrow Woman the fact. 

"Well," she said, "he has been spoken of as dead, 
and he must die. I will go to him." 

Mrs. McLaughlin was as anxious as myself to break 
up the Indian superstitions that stood most in the way 
of their civilization, and she went with Arrow Woman 
to the camp of her uncle. The old fellow, named 
Little Soldier, was laid out in a tepee. He had a house, 
but with the Indian's indisposition to die between 
four walls, he had made his people take him out into 
the open. In his tepee he lay, his face painted ver- 
milion ; at his head sat one of his wives, at his feet the 
other. He was quite resigned. Outside, his relatives 
had gathered, and a numerous tribe they were. They 
were on hand to seize on the possessions of the family 
as soon as the life was out of the body of Little Sol- 
dier. 

Mrs. McLaughlin was given the place of honor in 
the tepee — the seat opposite the opening into the 
lodge. She asked the old man, who was breathing with 
diflficulty and obviously making every effort to die, 
what ailed him. He replied : — 

" It has been told that I am dead. The ghosts await 
me and I must go." 

He actually had no disease, and even fewer than 
the ordinary infirmities of age. 

The visitor suggested that what he needed was food 
and cheering up. 

"I have no teeth in my stomach," he said, "and 
my heart is sad. But I want one thing from my white 
friend." 

"What is that you want.?" 
[ 242 ] 



INDIAN SYMPATHIES 

The old fellow sat up and looked a little more cheer- 
ful — which did not serve to prepare his visitor for 
what was coming. 

"All my life have I been the friend of the white 
man," said the moribund one. "I have no white 
blood on my hands" — and he held out his bony 
fingers smeared with vermilion, with which his face 
was painted. "Those hands are clean. My heart has 
been good to the white brother, and what the agent 
has advised, that have I done. It has been hard some- 
times, but I have made the white man's way my way, 
and often have I hungered. Now, I would die decently 
and be buried as a white man. I want a coffin. I 
have said all." 

Mrs. McLaughlin told him that should he die, he 
would have a coffin to be buried in. The following 
morning, his son. Little Dog, brought the measure- 
ment of his father for the promised coffin, stating that 
he was dead. I directed the carpenter to make the 
coffin, which was promptly attended to, but when it 
was finished. Little Dog could not be found to take 
it to his camp, and, upon inquiry, it was learned that 
Little Soldier was still alive. 

The year was a hard one on the "hostiles." The 
men and women and children who had been out with 
Sitting Bull, were very far gone with poverty and dis- 
ease when they came in, and they died at a rate that 
kept me at my wit's end. They were given what treat- 
ment was possible and fed as well as the means pro- 
vided would allow. But they feared the white man's 
medicine, and their own medicine men were powerless. 
They were too far gone to be recovered by the means 
of food, and deaths were frequent — so frequent that 
[ 243 1 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the agency carpenter was kept quite busy making 
rough pine coflfins for their burial. The coffin which 
was made for Little Soldier, after having been kept for 
three days, expecting his son to call for it, was given to 
Big Road, one of the late hostiles, for the burial of 
one of his two wives who had died that morning. 

Some injudicious relative told Little Soldier that 
the coffin made for him had been given to Big Road 
for the burial of his wife, and upon Mrs. McLaughlin 
visiting him the following day, she found him in high 
dudgeon over it. He said, "All my life I have been a 
friend to the whites, and I feel much grieved to know 
that another lies in the coffin which was made for me, 
and more especially, as the person occupying it was 
an enemy of the Great Father." 

Mrs. McLaughlin consoled the old man by pro- 
mising him that she would see to it that he would have 
a nice coffin when he died, and that she would have it 
lined with bleached muslin. This assurance pleased 
Little Soldier very much, and when he died, a few 
weeks later, the muslin-lined coffin was forthcoming, 
which was regarded by the relatives and friends of the 
old man as a mark of great distinction, and they were 
not reticent in the matter of expressing their pride 
and admiration for the dead man, who stood so well 
with the agent as to have such a handsome coffin fur- 
nished him. 

In the late seventies, while I was still agent at Fort 
Totten, Mrs. Standing Elk was painted for death. She 
was about middle age, and some one said of her that 
she was sick. Wherefore she lay down to die. She 
first put her house in order and then she moved out 
of it into the tepee that was set up near at hand. Not 
[ 244 ] 



INDIAN SYMPATHIES 

that the tepee was such a rare place of residence in 
those days — or in these days either, for the matter 
of that. The tepee is the institution to which the red 
people cling with most affection, and even among 
the Indians living on allotments, one will see but few 
houses which have not standing by, and occupied in 
the summer, the tepee, that may be so readily trans- 
ported, when the red man takes his family and goes 
visiting his relations — which he does with great en- 
thusiasm when an opportunity presents itself ; and if 
the opportunity does not present itself, he will com- 
pel it, for there never were people like my red friends 
to go visiting. 

So that when Mrs. Standing Elk felt that her time 
was come, she lay down in the tepee and told Stand- 
ing Elk that her end was at hand. Standing Elk made 
no attempt to dissuade her. She had been a good wife 
to him, but she had come to the borderland of the 
country of the ghosts, and it was not for him to dis- 
pute the time of her going. 

"I want a coffin," said Mrs. Standing Elk. "Go to 
the father at the agency and tell him. And I would 
have a coffin that will fit me. It is not well that a 
woman should lie in a coffin made for a man." 

Standing Elk was the lord of his household, accord- 
ing to the custom of his people, but he had lived with 
Mrs. Standing Elk for many years, and there had been 
but one voice in that household, and that was not al- 
ways the voice of Standing Elk. So he got together, 
with much labor, a measure made up of pieces of 
knotted cord, and he measured Mrs. Standing Elk as 
she lay in the tepee. And with the knotted string he 
came to the agency and said to me : — 
[ 245 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

" Father, my wife will die to-day, and she wants a 
coffin from you." 

I asked him what the ailment was, and he said, 
" Just nothing, but that she had heard the ghosts call- 
ing and must go." 

There was no use combatting that logic, so I had the 
carpenter make a coffin according to the measure- 
ments of the knotted string, which the prospective 
widower took home with him, seated on the casket. 

Now it had taken some time for the making of the 
coffin. The carpenter was not a fast workman, and 
Standing Elk had been unconscionably delayed. Mrs. 
Standing Elk had become impatient. She was all 
ready to go and did not like the idea of being delayed. 
But she would not go without a sight of the coffin the 
white father was to provide for her. She could not lie 
in the tepee and wait for the coming of Standing Elk, 
but would sit without. And there she sat, her face 
painted for death and her relatives grouped about her, 
expectant. Still Standing Elk delayed, and her im- 
patience gave way to vexation. When the husband 
of her lodge arrived, late in the evening, with the cof- 
fin, she was mad, and getting up, she berated him for 
a laggard. When the coffin was taken from the cart 
and stood on the ground, on end, she stood beside it 
and found it was taller than she. Standing Elk was 
given a scolding, the group of relatives dispersed, the 
old lady carried the coffin into the house on her shoul- 
der, and when I left Fort Totten several years later, 
the coffin still stood on end in the house of Standing 
Elk. Shelves had been fitted into it, and it was doing 
duty as a cupboard. 

Henry Agard, as will be suggested by the name, 
[ 246 ] 






INDIAN SYMPATHIES 

was rather a progressive Indian from the first. And 
he was fairly well-to-do, as things went on the Stand- 
ing Rock reservation. He had a substantial house, and 
his wife was as progressive in most things as her hus- 
band. And they lived in peace for many years, and 
that peace was not disturbed when Agard's wife fell 
ill and told Henry that she was about to die. That she 
was ill was not to be doubted, but the announcement 
by herself of her impending death was undoubtedly 
precipitated by the gossip of the people, which told 
that she was sick. When she heard this, she told her 
husband to go and buy a coffin. 

I have said that Agard was well-to-do for an In- 
dian. He had some horses and cattle and had raised 
some crops — not many, or very large, but some. And 
his credit was good, — a condition quite as frequently 
to be met with among those Indians who have not 
taken allotments, and with them the expenses and airs 
of citizenship, as among those who are privileged to 
put their money on the bar, after the fashion of the 
white man. But if he had not been rich, according to 
his station, Agard was quite enough of an Indian to 
spend all he had in order to bestow the most expensive 
and elaborate mortuary honors on his spouse. There- 
fore it was not a matter to cause comment when 
Henry Agard sent away and bought a sixty-dollar 
casket for his wife. 

When the coffin arrived, the Indians of the reserva- 
tion gathered from far and near to behold the casket 
that the opulence of Agard had provided for his dying 
wife. He was pointed to by Indian wives as a pattern 
husband, one who did not scruple to do justice to a 
good wife. And Mrs. Agard participated in the en- 
[ 247 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

joyment of the good thing that had been provided for 
her final delectation and her long home. 

The coflfin was taken into the sick room, for she lay 
in her bed in the house yet, and death was not near 
enough to cause her to desire to be taken into the 
open. The cofiin was set before her, and the people 
went freely into the sick room to talk with her of her 
good fortune in possessing so handsome an equipment 
for the grave. And she, forgetting the mortal char- 
acter of her ailment and the calling of the ghosts, sat 
up and received the congratulations of the people with 
pleasure. And so cheered were her spirits, that she 
could not bear to die and lose sight of the handsome 
piece of furniture that enriched her house, and she 
kept the coffin within sight and proceeded to mend in 
her health, so that it was not long before she could sit 
up and take nourishment ; but she died within a few 
months, and was buried in the coffin which she had so 
much admired. 



CHAPTER XV 
PERMANENT INDIAN VILLAGES 

Fortified City of a Northern Tribe whose Language suggests Welsh. 

EIGHT or nine hundred years ago — this is not a 
matter of personal recollection, for I am taking 
the words of the ethnologists for the statement 
— a company of adventurous Welshmen landed some- 
where on the South Atlantic coast and planted a colony. 
Of this there seems to be little doubt — and as little 
tangible proof. The Welshmen, not having the in- 
stinct for conquest that marks their descendants and 
relatives of to-day, or, perhaps, finding the conditions 
in this country to their liking, appear to have devel- 
oped the capacity of the French pioneers in the north- 
west for assimilation with the native peoples, for they 
never went back to Wales, but became, in some sort, 
the ancestors of a tribe of Indians which left its im- 
press on the country from the coast of the Carolinas 
to the Missouri River country north of Bismarck. 
For the Mandans are thought by some writers to be 
the descendants of the lost Welshmen. Some philolo- 
gists have endeavored to prove this to their own satis- 
faction, and it is said that the Mandans, to this day, 
retain in their vocabulary a great many distinctively 
Welsh words. About this there is no room for quar- 
reling. A stranger meeting a Welsh word anywhere 
in the world would identify and classify it on the spot. 
[ 249 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Ud happily — but perhaps fortunately for them — the 
Indians never knew the art of writing the language, 
and there is no one among them who writes himself 
"Ap-Thomas," and they do not use a collection of 
I's in starting a word. But as before stated, it is said 
that they have many Welsh words in common use. 
And for hundreds of years they maintained physical 
and mental characteristics that have raised them 
above their fellows. The surviving members of the 
tribe — pitiably few in numbers — are still a superior 
sort of people, and no observer who has been among 
the northern Indians can have failed to note the dis- 
tinguished characteristics of this strange people. 

It is many years since I was brought into contact 
with them, and they were even then fallen far from 
the estate they once occupied. Driven before the 
white man, they had been forced into the country of 
the fierce and warlike Sioux, and their ranks had been 
frightfully thinned by war and disease. They lived 
then, as they do now, in neighborly fellowship with 
the Arickarees and Gros Ventres. With these latter 
tribes they had no blood connection, for the Gros 
Ventres are allied to the Crows; the Arickarees, re- 
lated to the Pawnees, came from the south ; and when, 
a generation ago, I was officially connected with the 
organization of a peace council between the Devils 
Lake Sioux on the one hand and the Rees, Gros Ven- 
tres, and Mandans on the other, these three latter 
tribes were living in perfect amity in what I believe 
was the last stockaded and permanent village inhab- 
ited by northern Indians. And strange to relate, it 
was not the Mandans, with the trace of European 
ancestry, who were responsible for the village, but the 
[ 250 ] 



PERMANENT INDIAN VILLAGES 

Arickarees. All of which reminds me of a story, and 
here it is. 

In 1878 the Rees, Gros Ventres, and Mandans 
lived in a stockaded village, just above the agency at 
Fort Berthold on the Missouri River. The village had 
been there many years. The Rees had come up the 
Missouri River. They left at several points evidences 
of their occupation of the country in the remains of 
abandoned villages. When they crossed the Heart 
River and established themselves on the Missouri, 
they built a village that might afford them protection 
from their fierce neighbors, the Sioux. They were 
utterly unable to cope with the warriors of the Tetons 
without some sort of protection, and this protection 
they obtained by living within fortifications. They 
taught the Gros Ventres and the Mandans that it 
was possible to live in comparative comfort — if not 
in peace — by interposing solid barriers to the depre- 
dations of the Sioux. 

The Mandans and the Gros Ventres, who had 
suffered in their persons and their herds from the 
Sioux, were glad to make common cause with the 
Rees, and they assisted in the building of the remark- 
able fortifications which stood on the banks of the 
Missouri until a very few years ago. They were unique 
in Indian architecture, so far as my knowledge goes. 
With an eye single to the possibilities of defense the 
Rees had chosen for the site of their village a bend 
of the river, where an abrupt angle in the course of the 
stream left an elbow-shaped tract of land with a com- 
paratively narrow base, and the high banks of the 
river afforded ample protection on the river side of 
the village site. Across the base of the triangle, two 
[251 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

sides of which were protected naturally, a stockade of 
logs had been built. This was a substantial structure 
of heavy timbers, the butts sunk well into the ground 
and the upper ends sharpened to points. Over the 
sally-port a watch-tower had been built, to command 
a view of the country, and defend the gate in case of 
attack. It was a complete defense to any attack that 
the Sioux might make with such offensive weapons as 
they had. A certain amount of genius in military 
engineering had been displayed, both in the selection 
of the site and in the construction of the defense of 
the place. 

Much as I was astonished by the appearance of the 
stockade, I was even more surprised when I passed 
the barrier; for the Indians whom I had known had 
lived in tepees, wickiups, or houses fashioned after 
the plan of the white man. The houses occupied by 
the people inside the stockade were, in a general way, 
in the form of tepees, but they were enormously larger 
than tepees and were built of logs. Good-sized trees — 
for that country — had been used, and these were set 
into the ground perpendicularly, embracing a circle 
of twenty-five or thirty feet diameter. In the centre 
of the enclosed circle, four uprights were fixed at the 
corners of a square, and these, running to the roof, 
formed, when closed in, a chimney, and furnished 
support for the roof-timbers which were laid from the 
walls. The roof was covered with grass or rushes, and 
dirt thrown on ; the chinks of the walls were plastered 
with mud. Attached to each of the buildings was 
a semicircular addition of considerable dimensions, 
proportioned to the size of the dwelling, and access 
to the house was had through this addition, which 
[ 252 ] 



PERMANENT INDIAN VILLAGES 

was used as a stable for their best ponies. For the 
Rees were fond of their horses. Moreover their neigh- 
bors, the Sioux, were also fond of the Rees' horses, 
and the Ree was disposed to take his best horses, 
racing and war ponies, into the very bosom of his 
family. 

The houses were scattered about through the en- 
closures without regard to street lines, the village being 
in every respect similar to the Indian village of the 
plains, but that it was constructed of timber and that 
every house would contain twenty or thirty persons, 
all the members of a closely related family occupying 
a dwelling in common. 

In this place at the time of my visit, thirty-one 
years ago, there dwelt some two thousand Indians, the 
Rees being the most numerous, with the Gros Ven- 
tres and Mandans strong in the order named. The 
community was governed by dog soldiers, head men, 
and chiefs of the tribes, but Son-of-the-Star, a Ree, 
was the head chief. The people retained their tribal 
characteristics to a certain extent, but long residence 
in the land of the Sioux had led them to adopt the 
Dakota as the common language, though among 
themselves they spoke the tribal language, the Gros 
Ventres speaking Crow, they being allied to that 
tribe. 

Outside of the stockade were the agency buildings, 
the new agency quarters being something like a mile 
from the stockade; and a trader's store, owned by 
William Shaw of St. Paul, Minnesota, was located 
immediately outside the stockade sally-port, Mr. 
Shaw being quite indifferent as to whether he traded 
with the people inside the stockade or with the Sioux 
[ 253 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

who might be engaged in the diversion of trying to 
knock the stockade down to the end that they might 
comfortably scalp the inhabitants. 

There never had been much peace between the 
Rees, Gros Ventres, and Mandans of the alliance, and 
the Teton Sioux of the trans- Missouri country, for 
the Sioux continually hungered for the horses of the 
allies; but for many years there had been amity be- 
tween them and my Indians of the Devils Lake Sioux, 
the Santees and Cut Heads. This amity had been 
jeopardized, even destroyed, by a couple of cunning 
white scamps who had evinced an insatiate desire for 
the horses of the Indian. 

The allies within the stockade were in the habit, in 
time of peace, of grazing their ponies outside the stock- 
ade. They were comparatively rich in horses, and the 
pasturage within the gates was insuflScient for their 
maintenance. One day in the spring of 1878 these two 
white men left their homes, up near the Canadian 
boundary on the Pembina River, and made a trip to the 
Missouri. They found the ponies of the allies and cut 
out fifty or sixty of them. The stolen stock they headed 
for the Fort Totten reservation, and, with the cunning 
of Indians, they left a broad trail that the owners of 
the stolen horses might follow. With malice afore- 
thought, they put on moccasins of the shape used by 
the Devils Lake Indians and left a trail that a blind 
Ree could follow and would immediately recognize 
as that of a Cut Head. This broad trail, which was 
actually blazed by the occasional abandonment of a 
worn-out pony, led straight across the country to 
Devils Lake. On reaching the lake, the thieves made 
a detour, covered their tracks by taking to the road, 
[ 254 ] 



PERMANENT INDIAN VILLAGES 

and went off to the northeast, arriving in good time at 
Pembina with their booty. 

In those days there was neither telegraph nor tele- 
phone in the country, but news traveled with incredible 
rapidity between reservations in a sparsely settled dis- 
trict. Word came to me of the theft of the horses, and 
the obvious intent of the thieves to fasten the crime 
on my Indians. I got into communication with the 
authorities, and the Devils Lake Indians were not 
long in finding out how the thieves had traveled and 
their evident intention to lead the Rees to think they 
had committed the depredation. I communicated 
with the agent, E. H. Alden, at Fort Berthold, and with 
the civil authorities, and the thieves were soon enough 
apprehended. The horses, however, or a great part 
of them, had been run across the line into Manitoba 
and sold. 

The Rees and their allies were wild. That a band 
with whom they were at peace, and had long been, 
should deliberately steal their horses, involved an in- 
jury and insult that could be wiped out only with 
blood. At least they would show the Cut Heads and 
Santees that they could wipe the injury out in blood if 
they wanted to. A big party of them left the village 
by the Missouri and started across the country for 
Devils Lake. 

At the bend of the Mouse River, they struck the 
camp of a mixed-blood from the Red River, one Joe 
Perronto. Infuriated at the loss of their horses, and 
without stopping to parley, they opened fire on the 
camp. Perronto was away on a hunting expedition, 
and only his wife and two children were in camp. The 
two children were killed and the woman wounded. 
[ ^55 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

With their savage ardor cooled, perhaps, by this 
blood-letting, they crossed to the west end of the Dev- 
ils Lake reservation, approached the camp of the 
unsuspecting Cut Heads, cautiously, and one morn- 
ing a number of my Indians woke up to find that they 
were constructively dead : the Rees and their allies had 
crept into the camp during the night and touched the 
sleeping warriors with their coup-sticks. 

In Indian warfare, he who touches another with his 
coup-stick is reckoned as the slayer of the one touched, 
whether he does the killing or not. To approach a 
sleeping enemy and touch him, then to leave a sign 
without the tepee in the form of certain sticks,would 
be equivalent to notifying the man upon whom the 
coup had been counted that he was dead, in that he 
only survived through the magnanimity of the enemy. 

At the entrance to their lodges the Cut Heads found 
the sticks indicating what had happened. They 
mounted and followed the trail of the visitors for thirty 
miles, then came in and told me what had happened. 
Something must be done to avert further trouble, and 
I communicated with the Commissioner of Indian Af- 
fairs and was directed to arrange for an understand- 
ing between the tribes about what had happened, and 
to bring about a peace council. Agent Alden — who, 
by the way, was a minister of the Presbyterian Church 
and who had been a very successful frontier mission- 
ary — was instructed to prepare his Indians for a 
council with the Devils Lake people, to the end that 
no misunderstanding might exist. 

Thus it came about that, one day in July, 1878, I 
put myself at the head of a cavalcade of Santees and 
Cut Heads, six hundred men, women, and children, 
[ 256 ] 



PERMANENT INDIAN VILLAGES 

and started across the country for Fort Berthold. The 
settler had not yet come into that section of Dakota, 
and the prairie, carpeted with flowers, was still un- 
touched by the plough that has since opened its vir- 
gin bosom. A queer outfit, that which I led out of the 
Devils Lake reservation, as it would look to-day if 
seen crossing the same prairie, now thickly settled. 
The Indians carried with them all the essentials for 
dressing for feasts, all their dancing regalia, and such 
things as they could procure for presents to their old 
friends on the Missouri. With carts, travois, and 
ponies, the procession strung out for a mile or more and 
moved leisurely along. There was some game in the 
country, and the hunters ranged ahead and to the 
north and south. The trail led along what had been 
the old military road established in the sixties, and 
along which the mail was carried up into Montana 
and Idaho. We passed Wook Lake, Dogs Den, and 
Strawberry Lake, and on to Fort Stevenson, which 
fort was still garrisoned, thence over to Berthold. 

The Rees, Gros Ventres, and Mandans came out 
to meet my people, a great crowd of them, and the re- 
ception was hearty enough to satisfy the Cut Heads 
upon whom coups had been counted. Up to and within 
their stockade they led the visitors, to assure them that 
they were welcome to all the hosts had. The people 
fraternized easily enough, but nothing could be done 
without a council, and if one council was a good thing, 
several councils would be better. There was much 
feasting and a very great deal of talking. I told them 
in council of the earnest desire of the Great Father 
that his red children should dwell in amity, and ex- 
plained that the ponies had been taken by white men, 
[257 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

and proposed a formal treaty of peace. To this all 
agreed, but it would not comport with the Indian 
dignity to make the treaty too soon. 

Son-of-the-Star, as chief of the allies and princi- 
pal spokesman, told how sad his heart was when he 
thought with what bitterness he had regarded his 
brothers of the Sioux bands ; how he grieved because 
his young men had killed the children of Perron to; 
and how firmly they would hold to the treaty about 
to be made. Crow's Breast, of the Gros Ventres, ex- 
pressed pretty much the same sentiments, and so en- 
thusiastic did the people become in their desire to 
make things right, that they rushed out, brought in 
their horses, and bestowed about fifty ponies on Per- 
ronto — who was on the spot ready to be surprised 
in case anything of this sort happened. 

When my Indians left Berthold, the visited were 
practically broke. They fairly heaped presents on the 
visitors. Everything they could prevail on them to 
carry off, they gave, and the Sioux were too well ac- 
quainted with the Indian etiquette to risk insulting 
the others by refusing anything. They trailed out of 
camp at the end of the visit with their travois, carts, 
and ponies loaded with the evidences of good will 
that had been presented to them. In the name of 
friendship, the Rees, Gros Ventres, and Mandans had 
impoverished themselves, but it was " Indian giving," 
the trail to Devils Lake was opened, and there would 
be visiting again and the allies would not leave empty- 
handed. 

The Ree village on the Missouri is long since aban- 
doned, and the people are living in the fashion of the 
white man, the three tribes still living in amity and, 
[258] 



PERMANENT INDIAN VILLAGES 

perhaps, further advanced in the arts of civilization 
because of the fact that they are not all of one blood, 
with ideas peculiar to a single tribe. And the pipe of 
peace that was lighted in July, 1878, on the banks of 
the Missouri, has never since gone out. 



CHAPTER XVI 
ON THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

Wherein it is shown that the Want of Good Faith on the Part of the 
White Man has had much Influence in making Bad Indians. 

I AM not an apologist for the Indian. I do not hold 
with those people who contend, and generally 
without much knowledge of the subject, that the 
red man has been pillaged, debauched, impoverished, 
and driven to desperation by the acts of the white man. 
In the nature of things, it must have come about that 
the Indian should go to the wall before the dominat- 
ing influence of the white man. When the first white 
placed his foot upon the shores of this continent, it 
was predestined that he should come into the inherit- 
ance of the Indian. And there is no use quarreling 
with the processes of natural law. But I do know that 
the sins of the Indians are traceable to the avarice, the 
cruelty, the licentiousness of Wasicun, the white man. 
What he is, the white man made him — for in the 
Indian of to-day there is very little trace of that high 
spirit and cheerful independence which marked the 
aborigines upon whom the first comers are said to have 
fallen, as soon as was convenient after falling upon 
their knees and giving thanks for coming into the 
inheritance that had been held for them for many 
centuries by the natives. 

I do not flatter myself that I am uttering an original 
truth when I say that the Indian has been made the 
[ 260 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

object of speculative persecution by every white man 
who felt that he needed what the Indian possessed. 
The history of the country, east and west, was written 
in the blood of men and women who were just as cer- 
tainly the victims, morally, of the men who made the 
Indians what they were, as they were literally the vic- 
tims of the tomahawk. That is all past and gone ; the 
last menace of an Indian uprising disappeared when 
Sitting Bull died. The Indian of to-day who is living 
at an agency, a moral pauper by reason of his depend- 
ency on the dole he receives from the government, 
waiting for enfranchisement by death or the develop- 
ment of some instinctive movement for self-preserva- 
tion, or that other one, who is struggling to stand up- 
right and alone among men, is handicapped m his 
efforts and his hopes by reason of the fact that he and 
his ancestors have been treated as liars and cheats, 
by liars and cheats, who wanted that which the Indian 
possessed. 

A hundred years or so of governmental direction 
of the Indian, sometimes by cajolery, frequently by 
warfare, and occasionally by rational and fair treat- 
ment, has produced a being who is still a child in his 
understanding of our ways, our philosophy, and our 
knowledge of the necessity for "hustling" for what is 
desirable. That century of experiment and exploita- 
tion has ultimately effected this: it has placed about 
the Indian and his property sufficient restrictions to 
prevent him from being officially robbed, and it has 
secured to him an inheritance that is just sufficient 
to make him an unproductive loafer — unless he hap- 
pens to be an individual of such strength of mind that 
he is the mental superior of his white neighbors. For 
[261 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

some years the government has been engaged in con- 
verting the untutored savage of the sixties and early 
seventies into an inoffensive but irrational being, who 
cannot get used to the idea that he is a human entity, 
with his own salvation, moral and physical, to work out. 
And this condition the Indian has been brought to 
because he has been coddled by a lot of fool friends 
whose hands he bit, or chased like a wild beast by 
fighting men who understood him no better than those 
who coddled him. 

It was a difficult task that was committed to the 
men who have been trying to work out the Indian 
problem of late years, — the task of bringing the In- 
dian to a state that would permit of his assimilation by 
the American body politic. It has by no means been 
accomplished yet. As I have said elsewhere, I believe 
it will be accomplished soonest by giving the Indian 
his portion and letting him solve the problem himself. 
And how much easier that task might have been made, 
I have proved in my own experience, by telling him 
nothing unless I could tell him the truth, and then by 
standing by what I said to the very end. I have been 
asked how I have succeeded in retaining the respect 
and even regard of the Indians with whom I have been 
brought in contact. I may say now — and that with- 
out self-laudation, for many better and wiser men 
have failed — that I treated the Indian as an individ- 
ual as nearly as possible as though he were a white 
man and capable of coping with white men with their 
own weapons. When I said I would do a thing, I did 
it, whether the Indian liked it or not ; and more than 
once in my official life I have had to take a very long 
chance with the powers, in order to carry out my 
[ 262 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

promise to the Indian without coming into conflict 
with higher authority. 

And I believe, as I believe in my Maker, that, if I 
had not bound to myself and their duty the Indians 
whom I placed in positions of authority at Standing 
Rock, and who laid down their lives in doing their 
duty at the time of the ghost-dancing craze, the winter 
of 1890-91 would have seen an uprising in the Da- 
kotas — perhaps throughout the West — that would 
have thrown into insignificance the Indian wars of the 
past. 

The making of unfair treaties and the violation of j 
treaty rights are the two things of which the Indian / 
has most right to complain, and I am moved to tell \ 
something of the treaties, their uses and abuses, with 
the people among whom I have lived for so many 
years. 

The Teton Sioux had always been used to a very 
wide range. Gifted academicians, who have studied 
the Indian in his history, have made it clear enough to 
us that the Sioux occupied a great extent of territory ; 
and what little they have told us I am ready to accept, 
for I have found that it must have been gathered by 
patient research. It would have been of no use to 
question the Sioux himself, for the SJioux has no yes- 
terday, and, the bookman to the contrary notwith- 
standing, he has no traditions. He does n't go back of 
his grandfather, and he does not appear to have ac- 
cepted anything, even from that recent ancestor, ex- 
cept the tribal and religious ceremonial which applies 
.in all the events of his life. 

Over a vast tract of country the Teton Sioux ranged 
in historical times. The territory of Dakota, to which 
[ 263 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

he gave the name of his nation, Dakota, — friends, — 
was his pasture and his hunting-ground, and he has 
been far removed from his allies and relatives, the 
Santees of the eastern bands, for many years. By the 
right of might and preemption, the Sioux had a king- 
dom for his back yard and an empire for his pasture. 
For hundreds of miles he had a free hand, and knew 
no bound when he rode west through the buffalo 
grounds on the far side of the Missouri, until he 
stopped to reconnoitre the country of the Crows on 
the west, and the home of the Piegans, Bloods, and 
Blackfeet to the northwest. 

Some speculative writer on Indian history has as- 
serted that originally the Indian who lived by the 
chase required eight thousand acres for his subsist- 
ence, — a theory in which I do not concur, but which 
might have been true in the case of the bands of Te- 
tons, for they might have taken allotments of that 
extent, every individual, and then had some land for 
sale. From the Missouri down to the Big Blue, north 
to the Canadian boundary, and west to the Big Horn 
Mountains and beyond, he roamed in indolent and 
lordly, if not very refined, leisure. Indeed, he had 
not paid much attention to these limitations until 
the government,\j)y the convention of 1868, put him 
within bounds; and all the Teton Sioux treaties go 
back to this convention for a basis of agreement. \ 

In 1867 Congress created a commission for the pur- 
pose of treating with the plains Indians, who had been 
carrying on a desultory warfare with the troops and 
the settlers for years. Dreadful atrocities had been per- 
petrated, and there is no manner of doubt that these 
atrocities were shared in by both whites and Indians. 
[ 264 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

The conditions were such that it became necessary 
to remove the causes of war if possible, and to estab- 
lish a modus vivendi which would preserve certain 
rights to the Indians, while giving the whites an op- 
portunity to open up the country without exposing 
themselves to the imminent risk of attack by the In- 
dians. 

As members of this commission there were ap- 
pointed eight men who were eminent in public life, 
and all more or less familiar with Indian affairs. 
They were Generals Sherman, Terry, Harney, and 
Auger, N. G. Taylor, Indian Commissioner, J. B. 
Henderson, chairman of the Senate Committee on 
Indian Affairs, J. B. Sanborn, of St. Paul, Minne- 
sota, and S. F. Tappan. The commission was well 
balanced, as to strong men, between the civilian and 
military elements, but was clearly dominated by Gen- 
eral Sherman, who had but recently expressed him- 
self as in favor of a policy of extermination against the 
Sioux. The other parties to the proposed treaties were 
not easy to come at, for the Indians feared they were 
to be trapped. But late in the year, treaties were made 
with the Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches, Cheyennes, 
and Arapahoes. The Sioux were more shy, and Red 
Cloud sent in word that he might come in the next 
spring. 

The commission made a report, based upon, or in- 
spired by, a council held at North Platte, in which this 
sentence is found : " If an Indian is to be trusted at 
all, he must be trusted to the full extent of his word." 
Which shows that the commission had arrived at a 
proper understanding of the people they were dealing 
with. 

[265] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

On the 29th of April, 1868, the commission met Red 
Cloud, with his Oglala and the Brule Sioux, at Fort 
Laramie, and concluded a treaty with them. The same 
treaty was submitted to and accepted by the head men 
of the Hunkpapa, Upper and Lower Yanktonais, 
Blackfeet, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, and Minniconjou 
Sioux, at various places along the Missouri River, dur- 
ing the summer. 

The treaty with the Sioux gave them what was 
known as the Great Sioux reservation. It covered a 
tract approximating twenty-two million acres, and 
its boundaries were defined as follows : Commencing 
at a point where the 46th parallel of north latitude 
crosses the Missouri River, and continuing down the 
east bank of the river to the Nebraska line, thence 
west along the Nebraska line to the 104th degree of 
west longitude, north to the 46th parallel, and east 
to the Missouri River; and to include the reservations 
already provided on the east bank of the river. 

It was also stipulated that the country north of the 
North Platte River and east of the Big Horn Moun- 
tains should be considered as unceded Indian ter- 
ritory, and that the Sioux should have the right to 
hunt in the lands north of the North Platte and on 
the Republican fork of the Smoky Hill River, so long 
as the buffalo continued to be numerous enough to 
warrant the chase. The further right of the Sioux to 
live the nomadic life was conceded by a stipulation 
giving the nomads an annuity separate and distinct 
from that granted to persons engaged in farming. 
The treaty was specific in conceding these points, also 
that no treaty for the cession of any portion or part 
of the reservation described should be of any validity 
[ 266 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

or force against the said Indians unless executed and 
signed by ^at least three fourths of all the adult male 
Indians interested ; and this should be kept in mind as 
having important^bearing upon subsequent events, jit 
is also worth observing that the commission, in mak- 
ing its report, said that the blame for wrongdoing in 
the past was directly traceable to the whites. 

In this treaty it was provided that the government 
should, among other conditions, furnish to every man 
who settled with his family on the reservation a cow, 
a yoke of cattle, seed, and agricultural implements, 
to the value of one hundred dollars during the first 
year of his incumbency of the land taken, and the 
same to the value of twenty-five dollars a year for 
three years thereafter. There was an annuity pro- 
vision for each individual, whether he settled or re- 
mained a nomad, and it was stipulated that a school 
and teacher should be furnished for each thirty chil- 
dren among the settled Indians, this latter provision 
to continue for twenty years after the ratification of 
the treaty. 

It was a notorious fact that the government did not 
comply with the stipulation as to cows, oxen, seeds, 
and implements, in the cases of more than two thirds 
of the persons having a right to these supplies. As for 
schools, absolutely nothing was done during the first 
ten years of the twenty provided for. 

At this late date it would be useless and unjust to 
uncover the motives of the persons who abused the 
rights of the Indians under the treaty of 1868. Under 
the peace policy proclaimed by General Grant in 
1869, some attempt was made to conciliate the In- 
dians and win them over by kindness, but their rights 
[ 267 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

were ignored. It had been solemnly promised them 
that there should be no settlement in the unceded 
Indian lands without their consent. They had been 
promised the right to hunt in certain portions of the 
unceded lands. These rights were ignored in one case, 
and violated in the other, for settlers and gold-seek- 
ers went into the country, and the Indians roaming 
therein, under their treaty rights, were liable to be 
regarded as hostiles, -|- an order of General Sherman 
issued in June, 1869, stating that all Indians living 
within the limits of their reservations should be under 
the control and direction of the Indian agent, but 
that all Indians found outside of those limits might 
be treated as hostiles. 

That these latter were so treated is not to be doubted. 
The Black Hills were exploited, not only by individ- 
uals, but under oflficial direction, for in 1874 an ex- 
pedition went into the Hills under General Custer 
and made a thorough exploration. The expedition 
brought out the report that there was much gold in 
the Hills, and then there was a rush. The Indians 
made objection to the irruption of the whites, and Red 
Cloud, at a meeting with a commission at his agency 
in the summer of 1875, made formal protest against 
the country of the Sioux being invaded and the gold 
in their Hills being taken by white men. There were 
councils and commissions and depredations and re- 
taliation until the winter of 1875, when it was de- 
cided by the authorities that the roaming Indians 
must be restrained ; and notice was sent to the agencies 
of the Great Sioux reservation, in December, 1875, ^ 
to communicate with Sitting Bull and other nomad 
chiefs, and give them to understand that if they did 
[ 268 J 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

not report on the reservation before the end of the fol- 
lowing month, war would be made on them. 

Sitting Bull always denied ever having received any 
oflBcial notification of this intention of the government, 
and it is doubtful if he did. In any event neither that 
Chief nor Crazy Horse came in, and in February, 
1876, General Crook took the field with a consider- 
able force, to punish the hostiles. Of that campaign 
and its culmination on the Little Big Horn, I have 
treated elsewhere, but in September of that year 
a commission — of which the late Right Reverend 
■ Henry B. Whipple, of Minnesota, was a member — 
negotiated a treaty with the Sioux, which opened 
the Black Hills, though not materially changing the 
conditions of the treaty of 1868, except in so far as 
it required all the Indians to live on their reserva- 
tion. 

The limits of the reservation were restricted by 
making the 103d, instead of the 104th, meridian the 
western boundary on the Nebraska line, and cutting 
out the V-shaped tract included between the forks of 
the Cheyenne River. The Black Hills had been opened 
to the white man, but the price paid in the preliminary 
to the treaty was rather high, or might be considered 
so, if flesh and blood had a price. I am convinced 
now, and always have been, that if the peace policy 
inaugurated by President Grant in 1869 had been car- 
ried out, and the rights granted to the Indians by the 
treaty respected, there would have been no bloodshed. 
Knowing as I do the Indian character, I am convinced 
that the Sioux people would, if they had been treated 
with, have been content to permit the opening of the 
Black Hills country for a price. 
[ 269 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

And this, in spite of the fact that no people in the 
world cling with more tenacity to the soil from which 
they sprang. It may have been because they lived so 
very close to the land that they had for generations 
subsisted on the natural fruits and riches of, without 
cultivation; but whatever the cause, the Indian held 
to his hunting-ground as no civilized peoples have 
clung to their native soil. But even so long ago as the 
early seventies, the Sioux hadjrecognized the fact that 
the white man was a superior power and that their 
only hope lay in wresting from the government the 
best terms possible for the country they must give up^ 
They were reckless of consequences when they took 
to the war-path, but they did not choose the trail of 
death because of a taste for blood, in spite of the 
savagery they had developed under the treatment they 
had received. They were a simple people and very 
much under the control of their chiefs; and with a full 
knowledge of the fact that they were going to the wall, 
with the ambitions of Sitting Bull to prompt them, and 
the desire of revenge on the part of Crazy Horse to im- 
pel them to retaliation, it was not a difficult matter to 
organize them into the power that reached its height 
in the summer of 1876, and drove them in fear and 
trembling to the treaty made that fall, when they came 
to appreciate what their punishment would be if they 
did not give up possession of at least a part of their 
hunting-grounds. 

And speaking of the campaign of 1876 and the 
means chosen by the whites to coerce the Indians to a 
surrender of their hunting-grounds, the late Bishop 
Whipple of Minnesota, a member of the treaty com- 
mission of the centennial year, said i^^' I know of no 
[ 270 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

instance in history where a great nation has so shame- 
fully violated its oath." ) 

The opening of the Black Hills was, no doubt, ne- 
cessary to the development of the country; it has added 
I don't know how many hundreds of millions of dol- 
lars to the wealth of the owners of the mines; it has 
given us that perennial delight, the city of Deadwood ; 
but we might have had all that, and there might have 
been no graveyard to mark the spot where Custer and 
his men fell, — a last reminder of the obstinacy of a 
people who resisted when required to give up the rights 
vested in them by solemn covenant with the govern- 
ment, — had the Sioux been fairly dealt with. 

It was prior to the signing of the treaty that the In- 
dians of Standing Rock and Cheyenne River agencies 
were disarmed and dismounted, and the power of the 
Sioux broken. Many thousands of ponies were taken 
from the Indians at the two agencies, and the disarma- 
ment was complete so far as the agency Indians were 
concerned. The working out of the Indian problem 
might have been made much more simple if the gov- 
ernment, after disarming and dismounting the people, 
— taking from them all hope of subsistence by the 
chase, — had made good the treaty promise of 1868 
and given them the cows and oxen they were entitled 
to. It may be said, now, that the dismounting and 
disarming of these Indians was justified by the pos- 
sibility that they might have left the reservation. 

In 1882 an attempt was made by a commission com- 
posed of Governor Newton Edmunds, Judge Peter 
C. Shannon, and James H. Teller to secure an agree- 
ment with the Sioux for the purpose of cutting up the 
[271] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Great Sioux reservation into separate reservations 
attached to the various agencies, and opening some 
fourteen thousand square miles of the Indians' lands 
to sale and settlement. The agreement failed com- 
pletely, and this largely because an arousal of public 
sentiment, and the position of members of the Senate 
and the administration, stood in the way of a seizure 
of the Indian lands without the three-fourths consent, 
the consent of a few chiefs and their followers being 
held insufficient. The number of signatures agreeing 
to the proposed act was so absurdly small in proportion 
to the number of Indians concerned, that the Presi- 
dent (Arthur) returned the bill and the agreement 
without recommendation, and stating that the com- 
mission had failed. 

Out of this failure came the appointment of a Sen- 
ate committee in 1883, the work of which has been of 
the highest importance to the Indians. At the head 
of this committee was Senator Henry L. Dawes, who 
gave his name to the commission which has so wisely 
administered the affairs of the five civilized tribes, and 
with him were associated Senators John A. Logan of 
Illinois, Angus Cameron of Wisconsin, John T. Mor- 
gan of Alabama, and George G. Vest of Missouri. 
The importance of a thorough investigation of the con- 
dition of the Indians, and the need for the wisest coun- 
sel in meeting and providing for those needs, were 
evinced in the personnel of the select committee. A 
sub-committee, consisting of Senators Dawes, Logan, 
and Cameron, went exhaustively into the conditions 
among the Sioux, and found that the people were 
opposed to the terms of the agreement proposed, stat- 
ing so in their report, and declared that there was 
[ 272 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

no possible justification for the further violation of 
treaty rights, as involved in the taking of the Black 
Hills. The report had the effect of putting a stop to 
further attempts of the sort for some years, and this 
condition obtained without anything more than a 
constant agitation among the people within the de- 
partment and without, looking to a cutting up of the 
reservation. 

At the time the Dawes Committee made its in- 
vestigation, I was in favor of reducing the size of the 
reservation and of doing away with gratuities by the 
government, so far as possible, ^^was convinced that 
the way to wean the nomad from his habits was to 
make him a farmer, where the country was adapted 
to farming ;Uf he was permitted to become a herder, 
he would retain too many of his old habits. And I told 
the committee that I would favor the Indian only when 
he had done something for himself, not gratuitously. 
If he built a house, pay him ; if he cultivated a piece 
of land, reward him for his labor; and all these ends 
could best be realized by reducing the size of the im- 
mense tract upon which the Teton Sioux were placed. 

It was in 1888 that the next commission was ap- 
pointed, for the purpose of making a new agreement 
with the Sioux on the Great reservation. At that time 
I had been seventeen years among the Sioux Indians, 
and had come to know something of the Indian char- 
acter and the sort of treatment that must be accorded 
the individual if the best results were to be obtained. 
I had been fortunate enough to secure the confidence 
of the Indians at Standing Rock, and I felt that I 
could carry them with me in any measure which I told 
[ 273 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

them would be for their good. I had also come to a 
certain understanding of the fact that, whatever the 
Indian got for himself in the future, he must get by 
making the best of any bargain proposed by the gov- 
ernment. I also knew and appreciated the fact that 
the time was near at hand when the country would 
need the superfluous Indian lands for the growing 
population. But I was determined that, so far as I 
could, within the limits of my official duty, I would 
counsel the Indians to reject any agreement that did 
not carry with it a fair compensation for any conces- 
sions that might be' made. 

In this frame of mind, I received the information 
that a commission, composed of Captain R. H. Pratt, 
of the Carlisle Indian School, Judge John V. Wright 
of Tennessee, and the Reverend William J. Cleveland 
of South Dakota, had been appointed to negotiate 
with the Indians and endeavor to procure an agree- 
ment with them for the cession of all lands west of 
the 102d degree of west longitude, and between the 
Cheyenne and White Rivers ; these lands to be added 
to the public domain, and the Sioux to be compensated 
at the rate of fifty cents per acre for all disposed of, 
the money to be credited to the Sioux nation. A fund 
of a million dollars was to be set aside at once, and the 
provisions of the treaty of 1868 for the education of 
the Indians in the science of agriculture, and for other 
purposes, to be carried out, including the purchase 
of twenty-five thousand cows and one thousand bulls 
for distribution, and many other minor details. 

The agreement proposed was not the sort of pro- 
position I would make to a friend of mine, but the 
people who were pressing it did not regard the Indian 
[ 274 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

in the light of a friend. I was made ex officio a mem- 
ber of the commission, for the purpose of conferring 
with and procuring the signatures of the Indians at 
the Standing Rock agency. I knew that the conces- 
sions the Indians were asked to make were immensely 
more valuable than was indicated by the compensa- 
tion proposed; that I was bound in good faith to 
the Indians of the agency to advise them for their 
good. Still, I was a member of the commission and 
could not counsel the Indians to reject the proposals. 
I asked to be released from service on the commission, 
and Secretary of the Interior Vilas permitted me to 
withdraw. Being relieved as a member of the com- 
mission enabled me to meet more freely with the In- 
dians as their agent, and, although I did not oppose 
it, they, being close observers, concluded that the pro- 
visions of the act did not meet my views, and the 
longer the commission remained at the agency, the 
more pronounced the Indians expressed themselves 
in opposition ; and after remaining thirty-two days at 
Standing Rock, the commission left for the lower 
agencies without having accomplished anything other 
than solidifying the Indians in opposition to the act. 
I have not hitherto stated my position in the matter, 
but I thought then and still think that I was justified 
in not aiding the commission to any greater extent, 
and in doing that which I regarded was best for the 
people who looked upon me as their adviser. But it 
put me in a delicate position, for it was very clear 
that Secretary Vilas and other influential members of 
the administration were very desirous that the act be 
ratified by the Indians. I, also, was desirous of an 
agreement that would permit the lands not necessary 
[275] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

for the support of the Indians to be utilized ; but I was 
the agent for the Standing Rock Indians, and knew 
that they were not offered any sort of fair compensa- 
tion, and was convinced that a further trimming of 
their possessions would set them back by producing 
in them a sullen disposition. I had conceived the idea 
that the Indian had rights, and that those rights, if 
recognized, would inure to the good of both the white 
man and the Indian. It was certain that an agree- 
ment would be accomplished on some terms, and that 
very shortly, but that the public interest would suffer 
no material wrong if the consummation of the agree- 
ment were postponed for a year or two. 

The agreement received but a few signatures at 
Standing Rock, and fared little better at the lower 
agencies, while three fourths of all the Indians must 
give their consent to make the act operative. There 
were councils at Standing Rock, Crow Creek, and 
Lower Brule agencies, and subsequently a general 
council, attended by the head men of the various 
agencies, at Lower Brule, and here it became evident 
that there was no hope of getting anything like the 
necessary signatures. Captain Pratt communicated 
with the Secretary of the Interior, and the agents were 
ordered to return with their delegations to their re- 
spective reservations. 

I took my people and returned home, to find an 
order there, dated October 3, 1888, directing me to 
proceed with a delegation of fourteen Indians and an 
interpreter to Washington City, meeting delegations 
from the other agencies at Chicago ; and on the night 
of October 14, the- great chiefs of the Sioux nation 
were together in Washington. I had taken with me 
[ 276 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

from Standing Rock, John Grass, Gall, Mad Bear, 
and Big Head. These men had been the speakers for 
the Standing Rock people at the councils, and Grass 
had established for himself a great reputation as a 
lawyer and catechist, meeting and parrying all the 
interrogatories of the commission, and frequently 
stumping the members by his knowledge of the In- 
dian laws and treaties. The other members of my 
delegation were Sitting Bull, Two Bears, High Bear, 
Walking Eagle, Fire Heart, Thunder Hawk, Bear's 
Rib, Gray Eagle, Hairy Chin, and High Eagle, with 
Louis Primeau as interpreter. 

The Cheyenne River delegates were White Swan, 
Charger, Swift Bird, Little No Heart, Spotted Eagle, 
Narcisse Narcelle, Spotted Elk, Crow Eagle, Little 
Bear, and William Larabee. 

From Crow Creek, White Ghost, Drifting Goose, 
Bowed Head, Wizi, Dog Back, William Carpenter, 
and Mark Wells. 

From the Lower Brule, Big Mane, Fire Thunder, 
Bull Head, Medicine Bull, Standing Cloud, and Alec 
Rencontre. 

From Santee, Joe Campbell and Philip Webster. 

From Rosebud, Two Strikes, Ring Thunder, Swift 
Bear, Ugly Wild Horse, Black Bull, Eagle Horse, 
Good Voice, Red Fish, Quick Bear, Pretty Eagle, 
He Dog, Sky Bull, Yellow Hair, Stranger Horse, High 
Pipe and Thomas Flood. 

From Pine Ridge, Little Wound, Pretty Lance, 
American Horse, Little Hawk, Many Bears, No Flesh, 
George Sword, Standing Soldier, Little Chief, Fast 
Thunder, Standing Elk, and Phillip Wells. 

A more able crowd of Indian orators and politi- 
[ 277 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

cians had not been gathered before in Washington. 
There were seventy-two men in the delegation, and, 
in order to give any color to an agreement, it would 
be necessary to have the signatures of three fourths of 
these, to hope for its acceptance by the required three- 
fourths majority of the Indians of the reservation. I 
was content when Captain Pratt domiciled the Rose- 
bud delegation with that from Standing Rock at the 
Belvidere Hotel, for I knew my people could not be 
moved, and the presence of the chiefs from Standing 
Rock would serve to keep the others in line — though 
Rosebud was solid enough against the ratification of 
the act. 

A meeting was called for the next morning, but the 
Indians were not ready for the council. A speech by 
Swift Bird of the Cheyenne River delegation secured 
a postponement — though the secretary was anxious 
to get the hearing along — by saying that the Indians 
had been on the train so long that their brains were 
rocking, and they were like drunken men. It was 
Saturday morning, and the council was put over until 
Monday. 

I shall not soon forget the next day, Sunday. The In- 
dians had been invited to attend the different churches, 
there being no secular amusement provided for them, 
and Father Chappelle, — later archbishop, now de- 
ceased, — then of St. Matthew's church, extended an 
invitation to the Catholics among them to attend his 
church, and I was asked to accompany them. The 
majority of the delegation fell into line, and were taken 
to St. Matthew's church in two special cars; and I 
remember that they attracted so much attention in 
the body of the church that Father Mackin, assistant 
[ 278 ] 




JOHN GRASS 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

pastor, came and asked me if it would not be well for 
them to be seated in the gallery, from which they might 
see without being seen, which was most pleasing to 
the Indians, as it enabled them to see the entire con- 
gregation. After service, a lunch was provided in the 
rectory, which the Indians enjoyed very much, to the 
utter chagrin of their fellow delegates, whom they 
joked upon their return to the hotel for not having 
chosen the right church to attend — the others not 
having fallen into an impromptu banquet. 

Monday morning the conference took place in the 
oflSce of the Assistant Attorney-General for the In- 
terior Department. Secretary Vilas, Commissioner of 
Indian Affairs Oberly, members of the Senate and 
House Committees on Indian Affairs, the three mem- 
bers of the Sioux commission, five of the Sioux In- 
dian agents, and the Indian delegations were present. 
The first council was largely preliminary, and at the 
council held the following day the Indians refused 
assent to the proposition. The Secretary then asked 
them what their objections were to the act ; whereupon 
John Grass made a speech, followed by American 
Horse and other Indian delegates, with Louis Primeau 
interpreting, giving reasons why they could not assent 
to the act as presented. The Secretary then directed 
them to put their objections and wishes into writing, 
and submit them to him the following day, which they 
said they would endeavor to comply with, and council 
was then adjourned for the day. 

The Indians returned to their hotel for a conference, 

and in half an hour sent a messenger to the chairman 

of the commission, with the request that I be sent to 

aid them in drawing up their proposition. This was 

[ 279 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

formulated soon enough and put on paper. It con- 
sented to the partition of the Great Sioux reservation, 
but asked $1.25 an acre for all the lands that would 
be ceded, and a certain interest-bearing fund to be 
placed to their credit in the United States Treasury. 
This proposal was signed by forty-seven members of 
the delegation, while fourteen of the others signed a 
minority report practically agreeing to the terms of- 
fered by the commission. 

When the proposal was handed to the Sioux com- 
mission, they submitted it to Secretary Vilas, who 
would not accept it, and the commission gave the 
Indians up in disgust. Indeed, I had to make a per- 
sonal effort in order to get the chairman to secure for 
the Indians an audience with President Cleveland, 
an honor that had been promised them, and which 
must be granted or they would be deeply grieved. I 
succeeded in having the promised audience with the 
President brought about, and the several delegations 
left for their respective reservations the same evening. 
I brought the Indians back home, and the matter was 
dropped until the following spring, when I knew that 
a further effort would be made. 

The act of March 2, 1889, provided for another 
agreement much more liberal than that of the previous 
year, as it contained several of the provisions asked 
for in the majority proposition of the Indians of Oc- 
tober 19, 1888; and a commission consisting of ex- 
Governor Charles Foster of Ohio, Major General 
George Crook, U. S. A., and Major William Warner 
of Kansas City, Missouri, now United States Senator 
from Missouri, was appointed to negotiate with the 
Indians for its acceptance. I concluded that the terms 
[ 280 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

proposed by the new act were all that could reason- 
ably be obtained, but I knew that the Indians as a 
body were opposed to ceding any portion of the reser- 
vation, and that it was clearly my business to get them 
into another state of mind. I had some hope of being 
able to do so, and, as a preliminary, I sent the men to 
the leaders whom the Indians knew I trusted, to tell 
them not to bind themselves by oath — as they had 
done the previous year — to reject the proposals of 
the commissioners. 

John Grass and Gall, upon whom I depended very 
largely, were important and influential men. But 
Grass had led in the talks made in the councils of the 
previous year. He had elaborated arguments which 
were monuments of logic, and he was rather proud of 
his unassailable position. Gall had stood solidly up to 
the position he had taken. And now they were asked 
to change front — though the act to be submitted was 
in accord, except in minor details, with the proposi- 
tion they had signed in Washington the previous Oc- 
tober. 

The commission met first at Rosebud and obtained 
a good many signatures to the agreement. Then they 
proceeded to the other agencies, and at Pine Ridge, 
Santee, Lower Brule, Crow Creek, and Cheyenne 
River progressed so far that the acceptance or re- 
jection of the agreement lay with the Standing Rock 
people. It was estimated that if six hundred signa- 
tures could be had at Standing Rock, the act would 
be concurred in by the required number of Indians 
interested. 

The commissioners arrived at Standing Rock, 
traveling by steamboat up the Missouri, July 25, and 
[281 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

were entertained by the oflficers at Fort Yates. The 
Indians, who had arrived at the agency in great num- 
bers, were greatly interested and rather excited. I 
met the commissioners upon their arrival, and was 
told by General Crook that they required six hundred 
signatures ; that they believed I had suflScient influence 
with the Indians to get them, and they looked to me 
to help them make the agreement. The commissioners 
asked to have the Indians assembled in council the 
next day that the matter might be explained ; and this 
I did. The council was a brief one, the Indians saying 
that they wanted time to hold their own councils 
before they could talk; and it was adjourned until 
Monday. 

All day Sunday I was much concerned about the 
matter, for I could see that, unless the Indians were 
strongly urged, they would reject the agreement. Sun- 
day evening I went over to the military post at Fort 
Yates and had a talk with Major Hugh G. Brown, of 
the Twelfth Infantry. For years we had been fast 
friends, and I felt the necessity for talking the matter 
over with some trustworthy person. I knew the future 
of the Sioux might depend on their action on the agree- 
ment; that if they rejected it. Congress might proceed 
to act without their consent. I laid the matter before 
Major Brown; told him I had been passive where I 
had not been opposed to the rejected proposition of 
the previous year, but had almost concluded that it 
was my duty actively to support this new measure, 
and procure its acceptance. He said he had been con- 
vinced of my attitude as to the proposition of 1888, 
and had heartily approved of it, but he now thought 
that the time was come to accept this measure. Before 
[ 282 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

going home, a casual meeting took place that decided 
the matter. 

I was going past the quarters of Colonel Townsend, 
the post commandant, where General Crook was 
quartered, when I was hailed from the porch and 
General Crook greeted me. I went up on the porch 
and told the general I would like to talk to him and 
the other members of the commission. They were 
gotten together, and we talked at Captain (now Brig- 
adier General) Craigie's quarters, where Governor 
Foster was stopping. I told them what the situation 
was, of my attitude the previous year, and of the 
temper of the Indians ; that I was now willing to have 
the matter go through, but it must not be pressed too 
hurriedly, as it would require some time for me to 
prepare the Indians for the change; and it was ar- 
ranged that a council should be held each day, and 
the Indians permitted to do all the talking they wanted 
to. 

I assured the commission that, should a few con- 
cessions be granted, the necessary signatures would 
be secured in three days after the rolls were pre- 
sented. General Crook and the other commissioners 
agreed that they would use their personal efforts to 
get the concurrence of Congress to the concessions 
required, which would provide for an additional ap- 
propriation of two hundred thousand dollars to reim- 
burse the Sioux of Standing Rock and Cheyenne 
River agencies for the ponies taken from them by the 
military in 1876; would guarantee the maintenance 
of the schools provided for in the act presented for 
ratification, to be chargeable to the cession of 1868 
for the full term of twenty years, — this provision of 
[ 283 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the treaty of 1868 having been permitted to slum- 
ber until about ten years had expired, — and certain 
fixed interpretations were to be made of vague sections 
of the act. 

For three days councils were held, and every day 
Grass, Gall, Mad Bear, and Big Head talked against 
the proposition. They knew I had changed my atti- 
tude, but they did not change their front — except 
that there was none of the keen pursuit of the com- 
missioners that had been indulged in by Grass during 
the councils of the previous year. On Wednesday, I 
concluded that the time had come to act, but to act 
with caution. Grass and the other chiefs must be 
gotten into line. 

That evening Mrs. McLaughlin entertained the 
commission at our quarters, at which reception all of 
the officers and ladies of the garrison were present. 
While everybody was engaged, I slipped away, ac- 
companied by Louis Primeau, interpreter, whom I 
depended on absolutely in my dealings with the Hunk- 
papa and Blackfeet, and drove to Nick Cadotte's 
place, five miles from the agency. Cadotte was the 
brother-in-law of John Grass, and I had arranged 
with him to have Grass meet me at his house. The 
movements of Grass being closely watched by the 
Indians, he was afraid to meet me in Cadotte's house, 
and suggested a vacant building near by. I complied 
with this request, and we had a talk. I told him that 
the time had come to recede from the position taken 
the previous year; that the agreement must be ac- 
cepted or Congress might pass the law regardless of 
the attitude of the Indians in the premises. Grass 
was an honest man and always stood for the best 
[284] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

interests of his people, but in order to meet my views 
now, he would have to recede from the position he 
had maintained in council and in private for a long 
time. I told him that if the act was not concurred in, 
a worse thing might happen: that legislation might 
be enacted which would open the resers'ation without 
requiring the consent of the Indians; and I labored 
with him until he agreed that he would speak for its 
ratification and work for it. When he said that, I 
knew that the matter was settled and the concur- 
rence of the Indians assured; but he would not con- 
sent to explain the matter to Gall — in that he was 
emphatic. I suspect that he felt he was responsible 
for the original attitude of that chief, and had not the 
courage to broach the change to him. I went to Gall 
myself, also to Mad Bear and Big Head, and told 
them what I had done and what was left to be done, 
and got them to agree to support the proposition. 

I had arranged with Grass that the Indians were 
to talk the next day in the line of asking concessions, 
then to formulate the concessions, in which I in- 
structed him; and finally we fixed up the speech he 
was to make receding from his former position grace- 
fully, thus to bring him the active support of the other 
chiefs and settle the matter. 

The council the next day was the biggest held at 
Standing Rock in many years. It was held within an 
enclosure made by placing branches of trees, which 
would temper the sun's rays for the people and ora- 
tors, around three sides of a large parallelogram. The 
fourth side was bounded by the wall of the warehouse, 
and the platform upon which the commissioners and 
officials sat was directlv in front of the doors leading 
'[ 285 J 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

into the building. I had an idea that there might 
possibly be some disturbance, and I proposed that, 
as the people signed the rolls, they should pass out 
through the warehouse. But there was no occasion 
for concern that day. Grass did most of the talking, 
and he changed his base with the facility of a states- 
man. He led the way up to asking for concessions and 
then asked for them. They were granted. Gall talked 
a little after Grass had concluded, and Mad Bear and 
Big Head followed after the leaders, and it was ap- 
parent, when the council adjourned for the day, that 
the people generally were going to accept their leader- 
ship. 

I had Sitting Bull and the so-called hostiles still to 
deal with, and I knew that, if given an opportunity, 
Bull would make some sort of demonstration. 

The following day every Indian who could get to 
the agency was present. I had instructed Two Bears, 
the chief of the Lower Yanktonais, to place his band 
so as to maintain a compact four-column formation 
around the semicircle, and directed the captain of the 
Indian police to station his men so as to protect the 
orators and quell any disposition on the part of the 
hostile faction. When the talking had been finished 
and the rolls were ready for signature, there was a 
good deal of excitement, and Sitting Bull, at the head 
of about twenty of his followers, put in an appearance, 
mounted, on the outside of the semicircle, and en- 
deavored to stampede the Indians and break up the 
council, but failed in his attempt. 

Grass, Mad Bear, and Big Head signed. It had 
been arranged that Gall should sign third, that is, 
following Mad Bear; it was a coveted distinction and 
[ 286 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

belonged to him of right; but there was such a dis- 
turbance all about him, that he feared bodily injury 
from some of the Sitting Bull Hunkpapa, and while 
he hesitated Chief Bear Face of the Hunkpapa 
stepped up and signed in his place. When the first 
four signatures were attached, and the signers pre- 
pared to pass out through the warehouse, Mrs. 
McLaughlin, who was standing near the open door 
of the building, reported that Sitting Bull and some 
of his followers were making a demonstration out in 
front and trouble was imminent. Lieutenant Bull 
Head was prepared for such an emergency, and rush- 
ing with his detachment of police to the front of the 
building, soon quelled the disturbance, by forcing 
Sitting Bull and his mounted squad to vacate the 
grounds. 

During the excitement, I caught up the rolls my- 
self, to prevent their possible injury, and ordered the 
people in the council to remain quiet. I told them 
that order must be preserved and every man should 
have an opportunity to use his own judgment; that 
the four men they looked up to as their leaders had 
signed the instrument of acceptance, but that what 
they had done was not binding on any one but them- 
selves, and that every man should do as he pleased, 
without interference; and the signing of the agree- 
ment was then resumed. The talk was made at the 
right time, order was restored, and the people crowded 
forward to attach their names. Before the commission- 
ers left, they had over six hundred signatures, which 
was all they then believed was required; but when 
they reached St. Paul, they ascertained that they had 
not enough names. They had left the rolls with me, 
[ 287 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

and sent word back that more names were needed. 
We gave them eight hundred and three names at 
Standing Rock before the rolls were closed. 

The following December, I took John Grass, Gall, 
Mad Bear, Bear Face, and Big Head to Washington, 
where we were met by delegations from the other 
Sioux agencies, and additional legislation for the pay- 
ment for ponies taken by the military from the Indi- 
ans in 1876 was enacted by Congress that session, to 
meet the concessions promised by the commissioners 
at the Standing Rock agency. And the conditions 
agreed upon were faithfully carried out. 

This is the history of the treaty-making with the 
Teton Sioux. The government has faithfully kept 
the promise made in the last agreement, and the peo- 
ple have prospered. The conditions under which the 
last agreement was made were such as to show the 
Indians that their rights were to be respected, and the 
fact that they were well affected to the government 
was demonstrated the next year, during the trying 
times of the ghost-dancing, when, in spite of the al- 
lurements of a new religious movement, which ap- 
pealed strongly to the Indian nature, the people, with 
comparatively few exceptions, remained loyal to the 
whites, and the agent had the vast majority of them 
at all times under control. 

The Teton Sioux made it his boast for many years 
that he had not killed a white man ; there was another 
period when the same Sioux was very busy killing 
what whites he could get in range of, and he showed 
himself a soldier of rare ability. But the disposition of 
this stalwart, simple-minded people to do what was 
[ 288 ] 



THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF TREATIES 

right was easily enough developed, when the rights 
they had fought for and been promised began to be 
respected by the whites, and the Indian was treated 
like a man. x^ 

The history of treaty-making with the Sioux is the 
history of the treaty-making with all the Indians. 
•The treaties were made for the accommodation of 
the whites, and broken when they interfered with the 
money-getters. \There never was a time in the history 
of this country when the government could not have 
obtained any reasonable concession from the Indians, 
if it had treated the red men honestly ; and I know of 
few — and those isolated cases — Indian outbreaks 
which were not preceded by acts of oppression prac- 
ticed by the civilized people on the barbarians; and 
like barbarians those same people revenged them- 
selves. < There is no possible justification for the bar- 
barities practiced by the Indians when they were 
aroused to dig up the hatchet, but the Indian wars 
generally have been in the nature of fierce reprisals 
for injuries sustained. That the Indian has not always 
discriminated between the innocent and the guilty in 
taking his revenge, is certain — else had there been 
no Minnesota massacre. If his sense of justice had 
led him to fine discrimination in these matters, the 
red man would long ago have made an attack on 
the national Capitol. 



CHAPTER XVII 

MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

Fourteen Years of Indian Diplomacy — Dealing with the Shoshones* 
and Arapahoes — Getting Title to the Great Pipestone Quarry — How 
a Cheyenne Indian can Die. 

IN January, 1895, I declined an appointment as 
assistant commissioner of Indian Affairs. Hon. 
Hoke Smith, afterwards governor of Georgia, was 
the Secretary of the Interior, and he made the tender 
of the appointment under conditions that made the 
declination embarrassing, because it was so flattering. 
Fourteen agents had been called to Washington for 
conference. We had a meeting with the Secretary, 
and it fell to my lot to answer many of the questions 
propounded by him. I had a great and vital interest 
in the Indian work and knew the people. I had, 
moreover, very fixed ideas as. to how they should be 
treated. After the conference the Secretary made an 
appointment for me to meet him privately. I met him 
next morning, and he told me that President Cleve- 
land had selected me for the position of assistant 
commissioner. I declined, for the reason that I pre- 
ferred service in the field, which would keep me in 
direct touch with the Indian. I told the Secretary that 
I had certain ideas as to how the Indian should be 
treated, and did not wish to be in a position where 
I would be tempted to apply these ideas and possi- 
bly be overruled by the commissioner. Besides, the 
place was subject to change with a change of admin- 
[ 290 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

istration, and I was not minded to be so situated that 
I might be forced out of the service by the exigencies 
of politics. 

Secretary Smith said that he would have the posi- 
tion placed under civil-service rules, making it con- 
tinuous, but I persisted in my declination and then 
the Secretary said : — 

"The President is desirous of giving you some sort 
of recognition and a broader field for your work. 
Will you accept an inspectorship.?" 

I told him at once that I would, — that the work 
would be congenial and I thought I could be useful 
in the field. An appointment was made for me to 
remain and see the President after the other agents 
had left. An audience was given all of us by Presi- 
dent Cleveland the next day, and the matter was set- 
tled. 

Secretary Smith paid me the compliment of asking 
who I thought would make a desirable agent to suc- 
ceed me at Standing Rock, and I recommended John 
W. Cramsie of St. Paul, Minnesota. Mr. Cramsie 
had succeeded me at Devils Lake, and had declined 
a third reappointment at that agency. He knew the 
Sioux, and I had confidence in his ability to manage 
the Standing Rock people. He was appointed to the 
place, and I took the position of inspector and began 
active work on the first of the following April, though 
my appointment ran from the 19th of January. 

Treaty-making with the Indians has been my busi- 
ness very generally since my appointment as inspector. 
I have made all the treaties, — or agreements, as they 
are designated now, legally, — with two exceptions, 
that have been entered into in the past thirteen years. 
[291 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

There was a treaty-making commission that was or- 
ganized in President Cleveland's last term, but the 
commission made only two treaties in the several 
years of its existence, — one known as the Fort Hall 
treaty, and the other with the Crows. 

This constant treating with many tribes has 
brought me into close personal contact with practically 
all of the Indian tribes of the country. From the 
Chippewas of Minnesota, in the northeast, to the 
Mission Indians of California, in the southwest, I 
have dealt with all the red people, consummating 
numerous agreements and other important negotia- 
tions. In the list of Indians who were parties to these 
agreements, were many tribes who would not appear 
in the enumeration of the agreements themselves, for 
it is frequently the case in the Pacific Coast agencies 
that remnants of many tribes are gathered on a single 
reservation. And I might say now that I believe the 
solution of the Indian problem is brought very much 
nearer to us by this mixing of the tribes. 

I had recently occasion to visit a remote agency in 
Califo rnia at the Round Valley school. The reserva- 
tion is located in the heart of the Coast Range moun- 
tains, forty-odd miles from the nearest railroad point 
and approachable only by a mountainous and difficult 
road. It is cut off from the world by its difficulty of 
access. On this reservation there were gathered dur- 
ing the third quarter of the last century fragments of 
bands belonging generally to the Digger tribe, with 
a couple of remnants of people that were not classified 
as Diggers. fThese bands, or sub-tribes, spoke differ- 
ent languages. They had been widely scattered and 
much persecuted. They had some traditional customs 
[ 292 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

in common, and they were very far down in the scale J 
of humanity. Being confined on the one reservation, f 
they were compelled to adopt a common language, [ 
and they took to the English as the readiest mode for | 
a common tongue. This necessarily broke down the \ 
Indian barrier of a language foreign to that used by 
the whites, and made easy their conversion to other 
customs of the white people. 

I have no hesitancy in saying that these people, who ; 
were so far down in the scale of humanity a couple / 
of generations ago, are now further advanced than | 
* nine tenths of the Indians in the country. They have \ 
received no government aid, have been compelled to j 
*' rustle" for subsistence, and are at least the equals I 
of the whites who live in the country surrounding \ 
them. They demonstrate positively the tenability of 
my theory that the Indian problem will solve itself 
as soon as the Indian is shown that he must depend J 
entirely on his own resources; that \ke government,,/ 
has nothing more in store for him.) 'i^hese people — 
Concows, Wylackies, Ukies, and several other bands 
— are prosperous and enlightened. Almost invariably 
they have attained to some sort of independence, and 
are rather better off than the white people among 
whom they live. 

Indians are shrewder in diplomacy than might be 
expected by those who judge of their capacity from 
the manner in which they have been deprived of their 
native riches. In the hard school of adversity they 
have learned a great deal, and I have found among 
them many men who, had they been educated, would 
have made excellent lawyers. It is true that I have 
generally succeeded in making the agreements that 
[ 293 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

I have offered the Indians, but this success was ra- 
ther due to the manner of the negotiation than be- 
cause the agreements were desired by the Indians. 
This I have effected by permitting the other parties 
to the agreement to take the position of making the 
terms themselves. In almost every instance, the atti- 
tude of the Indian in the beginning has been that of 
opposition to the proposed agreement, but they have 
always come around to the other point of view. It 
has been simply a matter of showing them, by illus- 
trations they would understand, that what was pro- 
posed would be best for them in the long run. 

They are simple-minded people, and direct argu- 
ments must be made to them ; but they are no longer 
amenable to the argument that used to take the form 
of feasting them. Many successful treaty-makers 
used this method most effectively. General Crook 
was known among the Sioux as "the pony-and-grub 
man." On one occasion, when I was negotiating an 
agreement with the Red Lake Chippewas of Minne- 
sota, for the cession of a portion of their reservation, 
one of the chiefs, who was originally opposed to the 
proposition submitted, said that the beef that was 
piled on the porch was there for the purpose of se- 
ducing his young men. I know not if that be true, but 
he ate some of the beef, and signed the agreement. 

Practically all of the so-called agreements made 
with the Indians in these latter days concern the ces- 
sion of lands that have been parts of Indian reserva- 
tions. Among the agreements which I have negoti- 
ated are those which opened to settlement large areas 
in South Dakota and other states, and with this fea- 
ture of the land-openings the public is not familiar. 
[ 294 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

The method of procedure in treaty-making is nearly 
always the same, the argument being adapted to 
local conditions. In the list of treaties in which I 
represented the government and was successful in 
having them accepted, the proposition in every case 
arising with the government, are-.-thi:ee^agr-eem<?nts 
with the Shoshones and Arapahoes, two tribes located 
on the same reservation in Wyoming; with the Lower 
Brules, the Sioux of the Rosebud agency, ceding the 
land that caused the rush to Bonesteel, South Dakota, 
in 1904, and again in 1909; with the Otoes and 
Missourias ; with the Klamaths and Modocs ; with the 
.Northern Chevenne s ; with the Grande Rondes ; with 
the Yanktons for the Pipestone quarry; with the 
Sioux of Devils Lake, North Dakota; with the Red 
Lake Chippewas; with the Mille Lacs Chippewas; 
with the Sioux of the Cheyenne River agency, for 
grazing leases and cattle-trails, also for a large cession 
of lands, in 1908 ; with the Standing Rock Sioux, the 
Pah-Utes of Walker River, Nevada; with the Port 
Madison Indians, Washington, and with the Mor- 
mons of Tuba City, Arizona, — the latter being an 
agreement for the relinquishment of land held by 
them, and necessary for the extension of the Moqui 
reservation. 

^ My first agreement was with the Shoshones and 
Arapahoes of Wyoming. They are distinct tribes, 
occupying the Wind River reservation, and a drive 
of one hundred and fifty miles from Rawlins on the 
Union Pacific Road landed me at the agency. Both 
tribes had gathered at the agency for the discussion 
of the treaty, and the matter was a delicate one for the 
reason that tribal jealousy existed and each tribe 
[ 295 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

feared that the other would get an advantage. The 
agreement proposed required the assent and signa- 
tures of a majority of all the male adults of each tribe. 

Indian human nature is pretty much the same the 
country over, and although I knew nothing of either 
the Shoshones or Arapahoes by personal contact, I 
knew them as Indians. As a matter of fact, my know- 
ledge of the Sioux language has made it possible for 
me to get along in conversation, with the assistance 
of the sign language, with most of the Indians east of 
the Rocky Mountains and north of Texas. The Sho- 
shones were very different from the Sioux, and had 
even been on fighting terms with them in my time. 
The Arapahoes were regarded by the Shoshones as 
interlopers to a certain extent. The reservation had 
originally been Shoshone country, and the Arapahoes 
had been located there as a matter of expediency. 

The Arapahoes were as strong, numerically, as the 
Shoshones, but the latter had the advantage of a 
spokesman whose gift of language and acquirements 
made him a man to be regarded with some respect. 
His name was George Terry, a mixed blood, an elder 
of the Mormon church and a talker of some ability. 
He happened to favor the proposed cession, but, if he 
had not, it would not have made any difference with 
his advocacy. It has frequently occurred that the 
Indians in council have come to a conclusion opposed 
to the views of their spokesmen, and I have listened 
to some very forcible arguments made by Indians 
whose personal views were diametrically opposed to 
the sentiment they were compelled to express in 
council with me. 

The proposition that I had to make to the Sho- 
[ 296 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

shones and Arapahoes had been, in effect, submitted 
to them before by special commissions. One com- 
mission went out in 1891, working upon an appro- 
priation of five thousand dollars that had been made 
for the purpose of effecting the agreement. The com- 
mission failed in its object. Another commission was 
sent out two years later, with a similar appropriation, 
and returned empty-handed. I knew that the Indi- 
ans could never be induced to accept the agreement 
if it was put to them as a business proposition. I took 
the Indian point of view in approaching them. Sharp 
Nose, the chief of the Arapahoes, was married to a 
Sioux woman. I could not speak Arapahoe, but he 
understood Sioux. I went with him out over a portion 
of the reservation where there had been some com- 
plaints of whites trespassing. And I talked Sioux to 
him. 

The Canon of the Wind River is a marvelous form- 
ation, and I saw and admired his country. It is really 
such a grand work of nature that I believe, when the 
transportation problem has been solved in that coun- 
try, it will rival the Yellowstone Park and the Grand 
Canon of the Colorado as an attraction for lovers of 
scenic grandeur. Sharp Nose may have appreciated 
my admiration for his country. He may have been 
impressed by the fact that I could talk to him directly 
and without the aid of an interpreter. 

Washakie, the chief of the Shoshones, then a man 
of eighty-eight years, also became my friend. He was 
a strong man and a great warrior. I had heard the 
story of how he retained the chieftainship of his tribe 
after he had become a very old man. I told him the 
story, and it pleased him very much. 
[ 297 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

As I heard it, Washakie was part Shoshone and 
part Umatilla. He had retained his domination over 
the tribe up to the time he was seventy years of age, 
but some of the ambitious younger men thought it 
time that he should give way to another chief. The 
matter was brought up in council. Washakie heard 
it discussed, and action on the resolution was post- 
poned. That night he disappeared, and nothing was 
seen of him until the time appointed, two moons later, 
for action on the resolution to depose him. The date 
of the postponed council arrived. The head men 
and warriors were assembled in the council lodge, and 
there was much speculation as to the whereabouts of 
the chief. No man had heard of him. The country 
beyond that of the Shoshones was not safe for a man 
of that tribe to be alone in. They were a warlike peo- 
ple and had a standing quarrel with outsiders. The 
men of the council feared that Washakie had gone to 
his death in a state of pique, because it was proposed 
to depose him. While the council was in session, the 
flap of the lodge was thrown open and Washakie 
stalked in. He threw down before the council six 
scalps taken from the heads of the enemies of the 
Shoshones. 

"Let him who would take my place count as many 
scalps," said Washakie. 

There was no more talk of deposing him. 

I concluded to make a trip over the reservation 
before entering upon the negotiations, and proposed 
to the chiefs of the two tribes that they each appoint 
a committee of three men to accompany me. Wash- 
akie was too old to go himself, and he appointed his 
son and successor, Dick Washakie, and two others to 
[298] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

go. Sharp Nose took two of his men, and went him- 
self. In starting on the expedition I did, almost un- 
consciously, something that brought me very close to 
the Indians. Major Loud of the Ninth Cavalry, now 
retired, the commander at the post of Fort Washakie, 
Wyoming, had warned me not to attempt the trail 
through the Red Canon ; that there was a road forty 
miles longer, but safe. The other officers joined in 
Major Loud's advice. Sharp Nose said that he knew 
the trail. I thanked Major Loud and said I would 
follow the advice of Sharp Nose. That settled the 
matter with the Arapahoe chief, and when that night 
I talked Sioux with him, and he recalled how he had 
visited Sitting Bull at Standing Rock when I was 
agent and had provided him with food for the jour- 
ney home, I knew there would be no question about 
the acceptance of the treaty by the Arapahoes. All 
through the magnificence of the Red Canon I went 
with the Indians, and promised them that if the agree- 
ment was made, the right should be reserved to them 
and their children forever, of bathing in the thermal 
baths that their forefathers had used. I separated 
from them at the mouth of Owl Creek, and returned 
to the agency by another route, appointing to meet 
them at the agency in council on the following Mon- 
day. 

The matter was settled before the council began. 
The session was of the briefest. I told the people what 
I thought they should do, and adjourned the council 
for three hours. During the adjournment there was 
a feast, and when the council met again they were 
ready to accept the agreement. It was simply an 
affair of meeting the Indian on his own ground and 
[ 299 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

establishing a precedent in treaty-making which led 
to my occupation as treaty-maker for many years. 

The Yankton Sioux owned, or claimed the owner- 
ship of, the famous pipestone quarry at Pipestone, 
Minnesota. Before Longfellow cast the glamour of 
romance about the pipestone quarry and attracted the 
attention of the English-speaking world to its exist- 
ence, it was a sacred place to the Indians of a great 
portion of the country. From time immemorial, it 
has been a place of sanctuary. Warring bands and 
tribes fought about it; but since the pipestone was 
first found red, no Indian has shed blood on the 
ground. The Indian tradition is that there was a 
great battle between two warring tribes, and that so 
much blood was spilled that it soaked into the ground 
and turned the clay red. Since that day no Indian has 
shed blood at the quarry. The Sioux, pursued by the 
Chippewa or Winnebago, who could reach the pipe- 
stone quarry was safe, — his life was inviolate so long 
as he remained under the protection of the spirits who 
guarded the pipestone. It was a place of sanctuary, 
as safe as was the church of the Middle Ages. 

From all parts of the country Indians came to cut 
out the red pipestone, mining for it in the dry bed of 
the creek and distributing the material for pipes over 
a vast area of country in which the white man had not 
yet set foot. The clay was easily cut out, being of the 
consistency of hard cheese. On exposure to the air 
it hardened, and was carved into the various forms 
affected by the Indian artisan in pipe-making. The 
land upon which the quarry is located was held by the 
Sioux for many years. In their wars with the Chippe- 
was and Winnebagoes they eventually asserted their 
[ 300 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

right to the territory in the midst of which the quarry 
lies. But the place they had so jealously guarded for 
generations was entirely overlooked by the bands of 
the Sioux who were parties to the various treaties, 
with the exception of the Yanktons. 

In the treaty of 1858 this band incidentally re- 
served their title to the pipestone quarry, and spe- 
cifically by their agreement of 1893, under the provi- 
sions of an act passed through the influence of the 
then Senator Frank A. Pettigrew, of South Dakota, 
which provided that, if the Supreme Court did not 
decide otherwise in one year from the date of the rati- 
fication of the agreement, the tract of land embracing 
the quarry should belong to the Yankton Sioux. The 
Yanktons filed notice of their ownership at the expi- 
ration of the year specified, and proceeded to claim 
the land. There are six hundred and forty-eight acres 
in the tract involved in the claim. The other Sioux 
tribes set up claims to equal ownership with the 
Yanktons, but the latter had established their right by 
the reservation incorporated in the treaty of 1858. 
In the spring of 1899 I was sent to treat with the 
Yanktons for the cession of the tract upon which the 
pipestone quarry is located, and upon which there is 
a modern school-plant for Indian youth. 

It must be said for the Yanktons that they imme- 
diately put a price on the sentimental interest that 
attached to the quarry. They asked a million dollars 
flat for the six hundred and forty-eight acres. The 
figure was an absurd one, but it does not do to laugh 
at the Indian in bargaining with him. I told them 
they would have to cut down the price or all negotia- 
tions might as well be called off at once. Then there 
[ 301 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

followed a great deal of dickering and much speech- 
making. At one time I had them practically argued 
into accepting seventy-five thousand dollars for the 
tract ; but when I might have closed with them at that 
price the following day, I was called away to Tuba, 
Arizona, on important business, and the matter was 
allowed to stand for several months. When I returned 
to close the deal with the Yanktons, they had got the 
price up again and I was glad to close with them for 
a compensation of one hundred thousand dollars. The 
agreement was signed October 2, 1899, but it is still 
unconfirmed. 

The agreement that I made with the Northern 
Cheyennes in 1898 differed from the ordinary run of 
treaties, in that it required the buying out and re- 
moval of settlers and the confirmation of the Indians 
in their right to the country that had been occupied. 
In carrying out my instructions, I found it necessary 
not only to buy out ranchers and individual settlers 
on a small scale, but actually to buy up the town of 
Hutton, Montana, which had been located on the 
reservation lands, through the incorrectness of a map 
ofthat portion of Custer County. 
^■jThe Cheyennes, who, by the way, had always been 
a fierce and warlike people, occupied a country that 
teems with Indian story and is watered by streams 
that have been celebrated as hunting-grounds. The 
agency at Lame Deer was named for the rover of that 
name, but it preserves the memory of a great warrior. 
Chief Lame Deer, who was in the Custer affair, and 
who was killed by a command under General Miles 
in the pursuit that followed the scattering of the bands 
after the battle of the Little Big Horn. The country 
[ 302 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

is watered by the Tongue River, Rosebud, Lame 
Deer, and Muddy Creeks, and had been the hunting- 
ground of the Northern Cheyennes for generations. 
They had defended it against their neighbors, the 
Crows, Blackfeet, Piegans, and Bloods. They were to 
some extent allied to the Sioux, and generally acted 
with them in the sanguinary affairs that marked their 
savage life. No Indian was prouder of his race and 
tribe than the Cheyenne, and they were warriors to 
be respected. Their advance in the arts of civiliza- 
tion was handicapped by their warlike attributes, and 
they were not curbed for many years after the other 
warlike tribes had accepted the conditions imposed 
by the white man. An incident that occurred at the 
Lame Deer agency in 1890 illustrates with much force 
their adherence to the peculiar code they lived by. 

A young man named Hugh Boyle had been killed 
by the Cheyennes. The authorities demanded that 
the Indians give up the murderers to justice. The 
Indians tried to settle the matter. According to their 
ideas, the death of Boyle might be compensated by 
the payment of ponies. They offered to give up a 
great number of horses, raising each bid as it was 
rejected, until the payment proposed was calculated 
to beggar them if it was accepted. To the ponies they 
added all their wealth in blankets and such other 
evidences of riches as an Indian may possess. They 
were finally made to understand that the white man 
did not accept a property atonement for the spilling of 
blood. The negotiations were carried on for some 
time and with difficulty, for the reason that few white 
men know the Cheyenne language. It is extremely 
difficult for a white man to master it, — indeed I know 
[ 303 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

of no white man who has mastered the language. The 
intercourse with the people was carried on through 
mixed-bloods of the tribe, and it was finally made 
clear to them that they must give up the slayers of 
Boyle. But they could not give them up to die the 
death that kills the soul as well as the body. They 
believed, in common with most Indians, that when a 
man died his soul left the body with his last breath, 
and that in case a person was hanged, the soul was 
confined in the body with the rope. They would de- 
fend their young men from such an awful fate as was 
involved in the hanging by the white man's justice. 
The crime they neither denied nor defended. An 
ultimatum being sent them that they must bring in 
the murderers, they sent word back that a Cheyenne 
was not afraid to die, but would not submit to being 
hanged; that the two young men. Head Chief and 
Young Mule, would show the whites how a Cheyenne 
could die. 

They appointed a date for the affair, September 13, 
1890, and they intended that it should be magnifi- 
cently spectacular. They were to bend their necks to 
the white man's justice, but they proposed doing it 
in a fashion that would impress the soldiers and the 
people at the agency. Special Indian Agent James A. 
Cooper had asked for troops, and one troop of the First 
Cavalry had been sent to the agency to make the ar- 
rest of the two men by force if necessary. The Chey- 
ennes gave up diplomacy when the troops arrived, 
and word was sent that the two Indians would give 
themselves up and be ready to die. They appointed 
to die with their weapons in their hands. They 
would not submit to surrender alive, but they would 
[ 304 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

ride into the agency and there meet the troops. They 
would shoot at the soldiers, and the latter would have 
to kill them in defending themselves. The proposition 
was rather a startling one, but there was nothing to 
do but accept it. An attempt to arrest the men in their 
camps would assuredly have precipitated a bloody 
conflict. The proposition of the Cheyennes was for a 
spectacular form of suicide, and the matter was ar- 
ranged on this basis. The Cheyennes accepted it all 
as a matter of course. The young men went about 
their affairs as usual, unmolested, and spent much 
time in visiting with and saying good-by to their 
relatives. The night before the date set for the finish, 
there were solemn dances, in which the Indians all 
took part. They were to meet death as warriors, and 
there was no reason why they should be mourned for. 

The morning of the appointed day the two men 
were anointed by the medicine men. They painted 
and decorated themselves with great care, and wore 
all their finery. Their best horses were chosen for the 
ride to death, and the animals were devoted to the 
same fate that was to be meted out to their masters ; 
for it was unlikely that they could escape the hail of 
bullets that would be sent at the doomed men. Thus, 
attired and mounted as warriors should be, the two 
rode down the slope from the northeast to the agency, 
where the troops were drawn up. 

The agency is located on a flat, with a rather sharp 
declivity across Lame Deer River. The flat is almost 
surrounded by elevations, and on the ridge to the west 
the Indians, probably every one on the reservation, 
were assembled to see the young men demonstrate 
to the whites how a Cheyenne could die. Beside the 
[ 305 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

agency office the troop of cavalry was drawn up; 
alongside of them stood the agency Indian police, 
close to their headquarters. The agency people were 
scattered about, out of what might be the line of fire 
when the shooting began. Never was a stage so set 
for so spectacular a tragedy. 

At the time appointed for the coming of the men, 
they appeared at the top of the hill to the northeast, 
and dashed down the hill at the best pace their horses 
could make. As they rode they sang the death-song 
of their people, and before reaching the level ground 
they began shooting into the ranks of the soldiery and 
Indian police. 

The fire was answered at once, the cavalrymen fir- 
ing rapidly, but ineffectively. The Indian police, or 
one of them, made better practice, for one of the In- 
dians went down with his horse in a heap just as he 
reached a little clump of bushes. The bullets of the 
police and the soldiers could not find the other man. 
They fired at almost point-blank range, but his life 
was charmed. He rode shooting and singing past 
the cordon of troops and policemen, out beyond the 
agency, then turned and rode deliberately back. He 
had passed the troops the second time before the fire 
of the soldiers and police was effective. His pony was 
hit and sank, and the man himself was shot and 
killed at the same time. One of the white party was 
wounded and one horse killed. 

It was finished, and the Indians closed in and took 
the bodies away with them to make mourning. No 
man who witnessed the affair could ever forget that 
those two Cheyennes had demonstrated that a Chey- 
enne could die as became a brave man, and the In- 
[ 306 ] 




Copyright, 1907, by Cresset 



TWO MOONS, NORTHERN CHEYENNE CHIEF 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

dians to this day will not approach the place of their 
death after dark. The spirits of the two warriors 
haunt the place, according to the Cheyenne belief. 

It was with this people that I had to treat, and 
incidentally with the numerous whites, in adjusting 
the Indian claim to the entire reservation. Many of 
the settlers and ranchers had gone on to the land in 
good faith, and they had legal claims to their holdings. 
There was another class of men who had bought out 
the original settlers, and these had an undoubted 
equitable right. There was still another class of 
people, who had gone on to the land knowing that 
they had no rights, but hoping that something might 
occur to give them title. These had to be removed. 
The Indians knew their rights; a people capable of 
doing what the two men accused of killing Boyle 
had done, might be expected to stand sturdily by those 
rights. The big men among them, American Horse, 
Two Moons, and Little Chief, were men of intelli- 
gence, and their people a fine manly lot. It took six 
weeks to adjust the purchase and to complete the ar- 
rangement for the conveyance back to the government 
of the property. My engagements called for the pay- 
ment to the whites of about $151,000. 

March 1, 1898, I concluded an agreement with the 
Lower Brule Sioux that involved more difficulties and 
required more finesse in getting the people concerned 
to a state of mind where they would act than any other 
work that has fallen to my lot. I was instructed to 
make an agreement that would permit the removal 
of four hundred and fifty Indians at the Lower Brule 
agency, South Dakota, from their reservation and 
their transfer to the Rosebud Indian reservation in 
[ 307 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the same state. This particular lot of Brules had made 
up their minds that they wanted to move ; but the rest 
of the people of the Lower Brule reservation had made 
up their minds quite as fully that they did not want 
them to move. Their withdrawal would take away such 
a proportion of the funds belonging to the people in 
common, as the number of those moving bore to the 
whole number belonging to the agency. There was a 
nice condition to adjust there. When that was effected, 
it was necessary for me to go to the Rosebud Indians, 
and convince the Indians of that agency that they 
wanted these Lower Brules to live with them — and 
at jfirst they most assuredly did not want them. 

It was a delicate piece of work, but it had to be 
performed; for when an Indian gets it into his head 
that he wants to move, the best thing for the govern- 
ment to do is to move him under the least disagreeable 
circumstances. These four hundred and fifty Indians 
had quite made up their minds to move, the others of 
their band had quite made up their minds that they 
did not want them to move, and the Rosebuds would 
not have them. 

First, it was necessary to get the Lower Brules to 
agree to the ceding to the United States of about one 
hundred and twenty thousand acres of land in their 
reservation, which would be the portion of the sece- 
ders, and to agree to the setting over to the seceding 
crowd of their portion of the permanent fund. It was 
rather a nice job, and there were all sorts of difficul- 
ties, but those were finally adjusted. Then I went over 
to the Rosebuds and asked them to cede to the new 
comers a sufficiency of land for their maintenance, and 
they demanded quid pro quo^ which was, of course, 
[ 308 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

ample. They came around to the proper point of view, 
Indian fashion, taking the longest way round, and on 
March 10, 1898, the agreement was signed, the head 
men coming round and the others following pretty 
promptly. The transfer was effected. 

Three years later I went to these same Indians with 
a proposition involving an agreement for the cession 
of a great body of land that was required for settle- 
ment by the whites. The land lay in Gregory County, 
South Dakota, and there were about four hundred 
and sixteen thousand acres in the tract. The deal 
was a big one, and there were many big talks. The 
Indian had come to a proper appreciation of the 
value of his holdings, and the government had not 
yet taken the position that there should be no appro- 
priation for the purchase of the lands needed, that the 
government would only take over the lands and dis- 
pose of them to settlers, holding the funds in trust for 
the Indians, but guaranteeing nothing, except that 
there would be a fixed price per acre charged to the 
settlers. The Rosebuds did not like the deal, and 
it was a case where I had to use personal influence 
to bring the agreement about. The people of South 
Dakota were very anxious to open the lands, and the 
rush to Bonesteel and the surrounding country re- 
sulting from this cession is still remembered. I talked 
to the chiefs and head men. I was well known to 
them, and they had confidence that I would not do 
anything that was opposed to their interest. But they 
were not easily moved. I made the agreement finally, 
securing the signatures to it September 14. The 
amount of money to be received by the Indians, under 
the terms of the sale, was $1,040,000. 
[ 309 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

The picturesque features of treaty-making with the 
Indians, the council and formal speeches, have not 
always been obtruded in the latter-day negotiations 
with them. Since the government very wisely ordained 
that the Indians should no longer be regarded as 
an alien people, and the treaties with them should 
be described as agreements, there have been long 
strides made in the direction of ultimate assimilation 
of the red people. I would not have it understood that 
I believe that the Indian is in any immediate danger 
of absorption into the general body of the whites of 
this country; but they have foregone their customs to 
a great extent, and given evidences of adaptability 
that they could not have been credited with a genera- 
tion ago. Indian human nature is pretty much the 
same as it always was. The Indian at heart is the 
same as ever. He is simple-minded and direct. He 
must not be reckoned with as a man who recognizes 
and understands the canons of the white man. He 
does not conceive of our standards. A discarded 
stove-pipe hat is no longer his idea of full dress, and 
a blanket no longer marks the circumference of his 
world. He is given much to the forms of law. The 
Indian is a natural litigant, and it is to be regretted 
that he is prone to this. He believes implicitly in 
the capacity of the white man's courts to remedy all 
wrongs, and is disposed to hire a lawyer whenever he 
gets a chance. There are bands and communities of 
Indians in this country who practically maintain the 
lobbies hired by law firms at Washington, and who 
often go hungry, when the fees they pay to lawyers 
would supply them with the material necessities of life. 

There was the case of the claim of the Otoe and 
[ 310 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

Missouria, tribes that have never made any claims to 
the attention of the white man, except among those 
who occupy their hereditary lands. They live in 
Oklahoma, having many years ago given up lands 
they held in Nebraska and Kansas. These lands were 
occupied by white men, and so involved had the 
rights of the parties become, that it was a matter of 
the utmost diflSculty properly to adjust them. One 
thing was very certain, — that the Indians had a valid 
claim, that they had not been paid for their lands, and 
that in equity something should be done to give them 
some compensation for the lands that had been oc- 
cupied by and tilled by the whites. In 1899 a propo- 
sition had been made to the Otoe and Missouria, and 
it had been rejected. The failure of the attempt to 
make an agreement left the matter in such shape that 
it was diflScult of approach ; but I was sent to talk to 
the people. A proposition was prepared for submis- 
sion, which I was convinced would not be acceptable 
to the Indians, — which proposition had been framed 
by an attorney of Cheyenne, Wyoming ; and upon my 
submitting it to the people it was rejected, and the 
interested parties who had accompanied me left in 
disgust, regarding the matter hopeless. 

I thought I knew the Indian attitude of mind well 
enough to feel assured that, if the people were talked 
to, they might be brought to see the advantage of ac- 
cepting a modified proposition, rather than to let it 
drag along for many years more. In Gage County, Ne- 
braska, and Marshall County, Kansas, where the lands 
were located, the settlement had become a political 
issue. Congressmen had been elected and candidates 
defeated on it. Some of the people who had bought the 
[311] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

lands had been induced to bid far beyond their actual 
value, with the understanding that only a jSxed maxi- 
mum would be accepted in payment. The titles were 
not clear, and the situation was much involved. 

After the original proposition had been rejected, I 
prepared and submitted a modified proposition, and 
in five days I had made the agreement and the matter 
was settled. It was merely a matter of being familiar 
with the Indian character. The people, red and white, 
were saved from endless litigation, a vexed question was 
settled, which could never have been so satisfactorily 
adjusted in the courts, and both whites and Indians 
got their rights. 

It is an odd condition that the Pacific States Indi- 
ans, who were by no means the equals of the plains 
Indians physically or mentally in their native state, 
have progressed beyond their better-developed breth- 
ren in the civilized arts. The ethnologists have dis- 
covered a great many remarkable things about the 
Coast Indians, and many of these things would as- 
tonish the Indians themselves. The probabilities are 
that they were wandering divisions, who in the pro- 
cesses of natural law were forced to the west because 
they could not survive among their more vigorous and 
warlike brethren. It is a far cry from the Mission In- 
dians of the southwest coast to the Chilcat family on 
the north; and, while the former were subjected to 
the civilizing influences of the early missionaries, the 
more northern tribes were exposed to the demoraliza- 
tion that must have followed contact with the sail- 
ors and early explorers. Having inhabited generally 
a country in which the physical conditions interfered 
with easy intercourse, these people became isolated 
[ 312 ] 



MODERN TREATY-MAKING 

to that point which made great differences in lan- 
guage. Then, also, they were of different original 
stocks and carried the parent languages with them. 
Thus it was that, in closely contiguous communities, 
the various Indian tribes of the coast had little or no 
communication with each other. The policy of the 
government which led to their assemblage in con- 
siderable numbers on a reservation, paid no heed to 
tribal affiliations; and in most instances people of 
varied languages and customs were placed on the 
same reservation. They were not strong in tribal num- 
bers, and they gained nothing in the way of conces- 
sions for lands, having no ownership rights. Placed 
on the same reservation, and compelled to provide 
their own subsistence, — being wards of the govern- 
ment without available appropriations, — they had 
to adopt a common language, and they took to Eng- 
lish readily enough. Having no hope or expectancy 
of assistance from the government, they worked out 
their own material salvation, perforce. As a conse- 
quence, they are farther advanced than the Indians 
of whom much more might have been expected. 
Many of them, though only a couple of generations 
removed from a people living on roots and fish, to 
whom even reptiles were not unfamiliar articles of 
diet, have acquired all the better habits of the whites, 
and their social condition is not infrequently rather 
better than that of the people among whom they live 
and who boast European blood. 

I made an agreement with the Port Madison Indi- 
ans, Washington, composed of remnants of tribes, in 
which all the negotiations were conducted in English. 
In the Round Valley reservation, California, I found 
[ 313 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Indians of heterogeneous tribes, who spoke English 
wholly, and who were Diggers of abject condition two 
generations ago. 

The independence of the Indian in his tribal state 
was exemplified in a manner that I have referred to 
before, in the custom of the head man and speaker 
representing his people against his own views. I had 
an agreement to make with the Red Lake Chippewas. 
It involved the cession of lands that might be worth 
a, million dollars. Moose Dung was the hereditary 
tribal chief. He was rather a smart fellow, and his 
father had been a great warrior, so eminent that a 
title had been given him for the section of land on 
which the city of Thief River Falls, Minnesota, is now 
located. He sold the section for eight thousand dollars 
and showed the whites of Minnesota how an Indian 
could spend money for a while, and eventually some 
of the other heirs, who had not been consulted in the 
expenditure of the money, had to be settled with. In 
the council with the Chippewas, Moose Dung, who 
was in favor of the cession, was compelled by the in- 
structions of the Indian council to make an argument 
that was entirely opposed to his views — which did 
not prevent him, however, from going out personally 
and influencing the Indians to accept the proposition 
submitted. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

Events leading up to the Ferocious Fighting in the Lava-Beds called 
the Modoc War — The Crimes of Hooker Jim and Curly-Headed 
Doctor — The Surrender and Death of Jack. 

I KNOW of no better evidence of the capacity of the 
Indian to adapt himself to new conditions — when 
he finds those conditions immutable — than was 
called to my attention in a trip to the Klamath-Modoc 
country in southern Oregon a few years ago, when I 
was told that within six years of the frightful affair 
of the Lava-Beds, one of Captain Jack's men, a fierce 
and bloody man who was prominent in the assassi- 
nation of the commissioners at the council that led 
to the finish of the Modocs as a fighting band, — that 
this man, "Steamboat Frank," had been ordained to 
the Christian ministry and put in charge of a church 
on the Quapaw reservation. 

And I know of no more fitting place for such bat- 
tle as was given the whites by Captain Jack and his 
handful of people, than the Lava-Beds. The idea that 
a white man might subsist in the Lava-Beds is hardly 
conceivable, but that the Indians lived and fought 
therein against desperate odds is easily conceivable 
to one who knows what the Indian can endure when 
he is compelled to it. A couple of score of white men 
fighting several hundred Indians, furnished with the 
modern machinery of warfare, would not last the day 
through. Yet for many days Captain Jack and his 
[315] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Modocs lived in the Lava-Beds, sustaining life by 
eating reptiles when they could not capture any of 
the provender of the enemy; lived and fought with 
almost no loss, and inflicting terrible injuries on the 
soldiers who were sent against them. The battle 
might have been a classic except that it was not war- 
fare, but the desperate defense of a handful of raga- 
muflSn Indians who had been despised for years, — 
it opened with a massacre and ended with the scaf- 
fold. 

The story of the Modoc war I had from many 
sources, and told in more than one tongue, — from 
army officers who participated in it, who could not go 
back and dwell on the horror of that campaign with- 
out confessing that language failed them when their 
thoughts went back to the awful days and nights of 
the summer of 1873; from Indians who told of it in 
fragments — as something that was not safe to talk 
of, for the fear of the white man's vengeance still 
abode with them; from men of the Indian service 
who were of the party of whites and had to do with the 
affair; from Mrs. Toby Riddle, the Indian woman 
who had accompanied the commissioners when they 
were shot down by the fiends who, headed by Captain 
Jack, did what an Indian has seldom done in break- 
ing a pledge given for the safe passport to a peace 
council. 

At the time of my visit Mrs. Riddle was still living 
near the scene of the affair, an Indian woman full of 
years but not infirm, whose heroic action in bringing 
out word of the attack by the Modocs on the peace 
commissioners was recognized by the government, 
and who is perhaps the only woman drawing a pen- 
[316] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

sion of twenty-five dollars a month as a reward for 
her own daring and desperate deed. 

Men who had to do with the stirring events of the 
Modoc war, whose families were then on the ground, 
as they are still, gave me the story and verification of 
disputed points. The Applegates were prominent peo- 
ple of the Klamath and Modoc country in the days 
of the war, as they are now. Major O. C. Applegate 
was agent for the Klamaths and Modocs when I 
visited the Klamath agency, in 1900 and again in 1901. 
When the Modoc trouble broke out. Major Applegate 
was in charge of the Yainax sub-agency. Yainax is 
forty miles east of Klamath agency, in Oregon. His 
brother, Jesse Applegate, was a captain of militia, and 
both had active part in the campaign. To both of 
these gentlemen I am much indebted for information 
and verification of the narrative here given. 

Rev. Jesse Kirk, an educated full-blood Klamath 
Indian and ordained Methodist minister, was my 
guide and interpreter during a tour of three weeks 
over the Klamath and Modoc reservation in 1900. 
He was thoroughly familiar with the Modoc outbreak 
and the campaign that followed it, and he related 
with the assurance of an eye-witness things that have 
become involved in historical doubt. Of course there 
were many other sources of information, but the men 
mentioned spoke by the card and with intelligent 
discernment. 

I did not appreciate the horror of that brief and 
bloody war in the Lava-Beds until I saw the country 
in October, 1900, when I was commissioned to go out 
there and make an agreement with the Klamaths and 
Modocs. In 1873, when the country was ringing with 
[317] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the news of the assassination of General Canby and 
Dr. Thomas, and the stories of the furious fighting 
that followed, I was on the Devils Lake reservation. 
We had some troubles of our own, for the Indians 
were restless — they were hearing of the doings of 
their cousins across the Missouri — and, incidentally, 
we were being continually bothered by the raids of 
horse-thieves from Turtle Mountain and the west. 
But even in that country, remote as it was from the 
scene of the trouble, little else w^as talked about at the 
agency at the time, for the desperate character sud- 
denly assumed by the Modocs was calculated to im- 
press white men who had to do with keeping red men 
pastured along the borderland of civilization. The 
sudden ferocity of Captain Jack and his people con- 
tained a menace we could not help feeling; and when, 
many years later, I was brought into contact with the 
survivors of Captain Jack's band, it was not easy to 
conceive that these spiritless people could have held 
the country awed a generation ago, when their out- 
landish names were on every tongue. They were 
an amiable enough lot when I first saw them, but 
the shining lights of their band — Captain Jack, 
Scarfaced Charlie, Schonchin John, Bogus Charlie, 
Shacknasty Jim — had all gone the way of the In- 
dian, good or bad, some of them by the rope-route, 
others in beds of the white man's providing, but very 
few by the bullets of the soldiers they fought in the 
Lava-Beds. 

It has often occurred to me that, in the term of my 
service in the Indian department, the red man has run 
the gamut between the limit of savagery and his pos- 
sibilities in the line of civilization. The fact is exem- 
[318] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

plified in the transition of the Modoc of the Lava-Beds 
to the Modoc preacher of to-day. 

The infernal gods, in horrid sport, might have made 
the Lava-Beds in a humor of frightful cynicism — to 
show how awful a thing the face of the earth might be 
made. The man of science would describe the Lava- 
Beds as a pedregal, — a Spanish word, I fancy, though 
adapted locally to the vernacular. It means a stony 
place, and the Spaniard who applied it first must have 
been woefully lacking in a knowledge of his vocabu- 
lary, for he totally failed to do the subject justice. 
The pedregal which was given a bloody fame as the 
Lava-Beds is forty or fifty square miles in area. The 
scriptural "abomination of desolation" fits it exactly. 
The surface of the Lava-Beds suggests the idea that a 
sea of molten lava and rocks had been hurled from on 
high, and that the earth, rebelling against the deluge, 
had opened its bosom in violent attempts to heave off 
the molten mass. In the contest the lava and rocks 
cooled, leaving great stones thrust out in impossible 
shapes from the volcanic ash; what might have been 
the surface, cleft in every direction by strange and 
awful chasms, would serve as the hiding-places for 
fearsome reptiles of an elder period. These chasms 
are described as caves, in the language of the coun- 
try and by the Indians ; but caves they assuredly are 
not, though many of them are almost entirely subterra- 
nean. In the Lava-Beds no green things grow, no 
spring moistens the chasms, there is no life nor sign of 
life, and civilized man halts at the boundary of the 
horrible place. For thousands of years the Lava- 
Beds served no conceivable purpose in nature, for 
even the beast of prey declined the pedregal for a 
[319] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

hiding-place. Then, one day, it became a practically 
impregnable fortress, ready made to the hand of a 
band of desperate men who found themselves in arms 
against a great nation. 

Fighting in this awful place, using its chasms for 
hiding-places and its rocky fastnesses for entrench- 
ments, the Modocs killed eight oflScers, fifty-five sol- 
diers and civilians, and two friendly Indians, and 
wounded sixty-nine whites, losing five warriors them- 
selves during the tragic affairs of 1872 and 1873. 

Like most of the tragedies of the Indian country, 
the Modoc war was chargeable to the bad faith of the 
white man and the dilatoriness of the government in 
making and executing a treaty. And it cannot even be 
said that the Indians were the aggressors in the shed- 
ding of blood, for it is certain that the first attack was 
made on the Modocs; that they were surprised and 
some of them killed, and that their first attack on the 
settlers was in the nature of a reprisal. 

The Modocs were never a numerous tribe. When 
the whites first knew them they might have numbered 
four or five hundred — there are three or four hundred 
of them now. They were warlike enough and carried 
on a desultory warfare with the neighboring tribe, the 
Klamaths. Occasionally they fought the whites, and 
many of them died by smallpox in the later forties, and 
a number were killed by whites in the early fifties. 
They were industrious enough, but were not farmers. 
They made a sort of flour from the seeds of an aquatic 
plant, and hunted and fished. Their nomadic habits 
led the settlers to regard them as a nuisance, — a dis- 
tinction they enjoyed in common with the Klamaths 
and the Yahoo Snakes, or Ya-hoos-kin ; and this fact, 
[ 320 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

that they were classed with the other Indians, had 
much to do with the disaster of 1873. They were of 
fighting stock, and their warring with the Klamaths 
had extended over many years ; and, though they had 
held their own on the field, the Klamaths had gone 
further along the road of the white man, and had 
rather the best of the bargain when it was a matter of 
dealing with the Modocs. These latter ranged over 
a restricted country on the Oregon-California border, 
though they never got very far away from Lake Tule 
or Lost River. In spite of their industry, on occasion 
they were used to a life of vagabondage, and the ease 
with which they secured fish in the lake and river 
made them anxious to keep their country. 

But the whites were settling in numbers, and it be- 
came necessary to restrict the Indians to certain limits ; 
so in 1864 a treaty was made with the Klamaths, Mo- 
docs, and Yahoos, to take a reservation on common 
ground in Lake County, Oregon. Schonchin, at that 
time the chief of the Modocs, — though his title was 
challenged by Captain Jack, — was satisfied with the 
treaty and certainly had the following to control the 
tribe when the treaty was made. But it was not con- 
firmed for years, — some time in 1870 it was pro- 
claimed. In the meantime the mischief had been 
done. 

It was alleged that they fell out over a division of the 
spoils — though it does not appear that there were 
any spoils to divide until 1867, when some annuity 
goods were issued to the Indians. Captain Jack de- 
clared that the Klamaths, under Captain George, had 
gotten the lion's share of the distribution. Schonchin 
appears to have been inclined to accept w^hat was given 
[321] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

him, and he was the recognized chief, while Jack only 
assumed leadership; but in high dudgeon the latter 
proclaimed himself a better man by rank and lineage 
than Schonchin and invited the band to follow him off 
the reservation. A very considerable number did so, 
and they roamed about the country, carrying on many 
petty depredations but doing no serious injury. But 
they were in defiance of authority, and the Modocs 
who remaitied on the reservation were continually at 
strife with the Klamaths. The Indian bureau estab- 
lished the Yainax agency, on the Sprague River in 
another part of the reservation, for the Modocs, and 
induced Captain Jack to join Schonchin there. They 
had more trouble with the Klamaths, and were again 
moved ; again Jack left the reservation, and this time 
he had the better of Schonchin, for he took a majority 
of the people with him. 

He lived with his band on Lost River and Lake 
Tule. He offered to accept a small reservation on the 
river, some two thousand acres ; but the Indian bureau 
could not afford to be dictated to, and Jack was again 
wheedled into returning to Yainax. There the trouble 
with the Klamaths culminated, and the step was taken 
that made Jack and his people outlaws and brought 
on the war. 

There is no doubt that the people had been in great 
distress. The constant moving about had made it 
difficult for them to get any returns from the crops 
they put in ; the hunting and fishing did not support 
them, and the government annuity was not often 
forthcoming. Some of the Modocs died of disease or 
distress. From the death of one of these men arose 
the event that made Jack a wanderer. 
[ 322 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

The name of the sick man, like that of many an- 
other individual who had to do with the making of 
history, is lost to the memory of even Toby Riddle, 
who remembers most things in Modoc history. The 
brave stood well with Captain Jack, and when he fell 
ill, a Klamath medicine man was called in to attend 
him. Jack appears to have had a personal medicine 
man, Curly-Headed Doctor, but the latter was much 
more inclined to vagabondage than to the practice 
of his queer arts, and he had constituted himself the 
chief of a little band of eight or ten as fine scoundrels 
as had hitherto been gotten together in that country, 
and was engaged in stealing horses and cattle and 
whatever else would walk or was portable. So Jack 
was compelled to resort to Klamath medicine for his 
follower. The Klamath doctor performed spells and 
shook his rattle over the sick Modoc to no purpose, 
for he died. 

I have referred elsewhere to the fact that it was cus- 
tomary among the coast tribes to kill a medicine man 
who professed to be able to cure, and then lost, a pa- 
tient. From time immemorial it has been a recognized 
custom among the tribes west of the Rockies, audit 
has been practiced occasionally among other tribes, 
when a chief found a medicine man who was becoming 
too popular, to have him quietly removed. There is 
no manner of doubt that the custom has been indulged 
among the far-north Indians, the Chilcats and others 
allied to the Esquimaux, in very recent times. It car- 
ried with it no more suggestion of crime, under the 
tribal custom, than that other frightful practice of 
barbarism which permits the killing of the old people 
who become burdens on families in a country that 
[ 323 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

yields no surplus of provisions even for those who can 
struggle for a living. 

The medicine man who was called in the case of 
Captain Jack's warrior, made an implied contract to 
cure the man or forfeit his own life. In taking the job 
the medicine man practically announced that his medi- 
cine was superior to that of the evil genius who had 
laid hold of the sick man ; hence, if he did not effect a 
cure, it was because he chose to let the man die, as he 
could not afford to admit that his medicine was not 
all-powerful. 

The sick man died, and under the circumstances 
Captain Jack could not, according to his lights, do 
other than cut the throat of the medicine man, — 
which he did, or was charged with doing. It is not 
worth while inquiring into his guilt or innocence, but 
he was probably guilty as charged. And the crime 
might have gone unpunished if Jack's victim had been 
a Modoc. But he was a Klamath, and the Klamaths 
immediately set up a clamor, demanding that Jack be 
arrested and tried by the civil authorities for the kill- 
ing. 

At that time civil law was not often invoked in pun- 
ishment of Indian offenses committed against Indians. 
But Jack was evidently afraid either that the authori- 
ties would act in the matter, or that the Klamaths 
would revenge the offense in their own way. In any 
event he moved off the reservation, and that his people 
were in sympathy with him was shown by the fact that 
two thirds of them moved with him. Schonchin's 
authority was finally broken then. 

It does not appear that the conduct of the Modocs 
under Jack was particularly reprehensible at first. 
[ 324 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

There were some other small bands, independent of 
Jack, as that of Curly-Headed Doctor, that made 
much more trouble. It is even apparent that Jack 
and his people lived on fairly good terms with the 
whites. They roamed into California, and, according 
to the newspapers of that day, they tried to save the 
town of Yreka, California, when it was destroyed by 
fire, July 4, 1871. They continued to make their head- 
quarters on Lost River, and the military authorities, 
as well as the Indian authorities, were inclined to 
favor giving them the reservation they desired. 

On the pacific attitude and the friendly disposition 
of the whites toward Captain Jack's Modocs, official 
records, made so late as the early spring of 1872, may 
be quoted. General E. R. S. Canby, then commander 
of the Department of the Columbia, and a man who 
knew the Indian very well, and was fated to lay down 
his life in trying to serve the Modocs, said : — 

"I am not surprised at the unwillingness of the Mo- 
docs to return to any point on the reservation where 
they would be exposed to the hostilities and annoy- 
ances they have heretofore experienced from the Kla- 
maths; but they have expressed a desire to be estab- 
lished on Lost River, where they would be free from 
this trouble, and the superintendent (Meacham) in- 
formed me last summer that he would endeavor to 
secure such a location for them." 

This statement from General Canby indicates the 
justice of the cause of the Modocs, but it did not help 
them to secure the location they asked. Then they were 
not dealt with fairly and firmly, as an Indian must 
be under any and all circumstances. Superintendent 
Meacham was retired in favor of another man, who 
[ 325 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

appointed two anti-Indian men to hold a council with 
the Modocs. The Modocs got a bad character from 
the report made, and the Indian bureau issued an 
order that the Modocs should be forced to return to 
their reservation and the leaders arrested. This order 
was evidently opposed to the expressed attitude of 
General Canby, who evidently felt that an injustice 
was being done the people. 

It does not appear that anybody was to benefit ma- 
terially by turning the Modocs out of the Lost River 
country; and if they had been given the reservation 
they asked for, not more than ten thousand dollars 
worth of land would have to be set apart for them — 
and upon this there were but few claimants to be ne- 
gotiated with. This solution of the trouble would have 
been in accord with General Canby's views, and the 
war would have been thus averted; and these facts 
may be stated now that the healing influence of time 
has been felt and the crimes of the Modocs no longer 
cry for the blood-atonement. However, the order was 
given for the return of the Modocs to the reservation ; 
troops were sent into the country to enforce the order, 
and it needed but that an overt act should be com- 
mitted to begin the brief and bloody Modoc war. 

On the night of November 28, 1872, Captain Jack 
and his band camped on the south side of Lost River ; 
Curly-Headed Doctor with ten warriors, with their 
women and children, had a camp on the opposite 
bank, all in Oregon. The commanders of the troops 
were afraid that the Indians were getting ready for 
mischief, and early in the morning of the 29th Captain 
Jackson, with forty men, surprised Captain Jack's 
camp and demanded the surrender of the Indians. 
[ 326 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

A fight ensued, in which one white man was killed and 
seven injured. On the other side of the river a small 
detachment struck the camp of Curly-Headed Doctor 
at the same time. Of the attacking party one was 
killed, another mortally wounded, and Curly-Headed 
Doctor and his party made off on the war-path. 
Within two days twelve white settlers were killed by 
these marauders, it being certain that none of the mur- 
ders were committed by Captain Jack's party, which 
was making south for the Lava-Beds. 

Instantly there was a reversal of opinion concerning 
the capacity of the Modocs for mischief. The people 
of Oregon were up in arms and volunteers were plenty. 
While preparations for a demonstration in force were 
being made, Curly-Headed Doctor and a particularly 
ferocious scoundrel who was supporting him, and who 
attained to an evil fame under the name of Hooker 
(Hooka) Jim, together with eight or ten others, after- 
wards distinguished by both the whites and Indians 
as "the murderers," started after the surprise and 
killed six more white men; but it was not until the 
middle of the following January that the assault was 
made on the Lava-Beds. 

Captain Jack appears to have been in charge of the 
Indians who had taken to the Lava-Beds, though he 
afterwards claimed that he acted wholly on the de- 
fensive, and that Schonchin had some part in the 
government. Neither Jack nor Schonchin had any 
sympathy with Curly-Headed Doctor and Hooker 
Jim, whose followers committed many atrocities, but 
the Doctor and his party joined Captain Jack in the 
Lava-Beds, and he permitted them to remain with his 
people. Had Captain Jack driven Curly-Headed Doc- 
[327 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

tor and Hooker Jim out of his camp, affairs with him 
might have been different, for it was made apparent 
later that he did not want to fight the white soldiers. 
He said that he was led to believe that, should he and 
his people surrender after having taken to the Lava- 
Beds, they would be hanged without regard to their 
guilt or innocence. That this was not an idle defense 
was shown later in the statement made by the judge 
advocate of the military commission which tried and 
condemned Jack and his fellows, who said he was con- 
vinced that Jack had nothing to do with the murder 
of the settlers. 

When the troops were ready to attack, about the 
middle of January, Captain Jack, with between fifty 
and sixty warriors and about one hundred and seventy 
women and children, was entrenched in the most tre- 
mendous natural fortification in the world — a place 
teeming with dangers quite incomprehensible to white 
men and incapable of sustaining life in any but sav- 
ages. Jack and his Modocs knew the ground, while 
the troops had no conception of what the place was, 
and even the Indian scouts acting with the troops were 
apparently ignorant of its diflSculties for assault. 

The Modocs had no considerable quantity of pro- 
visions with them. They had killed a few cattle, but 
had driven none into the Lava-Beds with them. What 
food they had, they carried in the form of meat hastily 
killed; and that could not last beyond a few days. 
They had means of reaching the waterways and pro- 
curing fish, and they lived on such vermin as they 
could find for the rest. But they did have a competent 
military leader, who had an idea that, if they could 
win one battle with the whites, terms might be made. 
[ 328 1 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

They knew the point at which the attack must be made, 
and Jack disposed of his men — all armed with muzzle- 
loading guns and revolvers, in such fashion as to com- 
mand completely the point. 

It is not clear that the Indian scouts with the whites 
knew where the Modocs were, for they led the troops 
in at the nearest point to the soldiers' base; and that, 
perhaps, was as sensible a move as any they could 
have made, not knowing anything of the ground. Of 
the four hundred men in the attacking party, two hun- 
dred and twenty-five were regulars with a couple of 
howitzers, twenty were Indian scouts, and the rest 
were volunteer militiamen. The advance on the Modoc 
position was made on the morning of January 17, 
1873, the attacking party being divided into columns 
with instructions to form a junction after the enemy 
had been located. The impossibility of carrying out 
this order would have been apparent to anybody know- 
ing the nature of the ground in the Lava-Beds, the 
fearful chasms running in every direction, as effectually 
blocking the union of the divided bodies as though 
they were miles apart instead of a few yards, as was 
generally the case. Once the troops had penetrated 
into the Lava-Beds all plans were useless; the only 
thing to do was to advance in whatever direction was 
possible, and it was soon found that, in whatever di- 
rection the advance was made, there were the Modocs. 

Not that they could be seen. The only evidence that 
the whites had of their presence was the constant and 
deadly fire that was poured all day from behind im- 
possible rocks, through crevices in what appeared to 
be solid walls of lava, and from out of fissures in the 
ground. But no Modoc showed his head during the 
[ 329 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

day long enough for a soldier to get a shot at him. The 
advance was made on hands and knees, generally. 
There was none of the glory of war about the fighting. 
Walking being generally impossible in this place of 
horror, it was simply a case of crawling forward in the 
direction from which the least firing came ; and the 
Modocs picked off the men when they would. No more 
heroic struggle to come up with and strike an enemy 
was ever attempted than was made by the command 
who went that first day into the Lava-Beds, and never 
was one more useless; for, when at night the troops 
were gotten out of the place of death, retreating and 
carrying their wounded with infinite pain and labor, 
they had made no more impression on the enemy 
than if they had shelled Mount Shasta. Twenty-eight 
wounded were brought out, and ten dead they had to 
leave to the Modocs. 

The commanding officer of the troops appreciated 
the fearful difficulty of the task before him, and be- 
lieved that it would take a much larger force than he 
had to dislodge the Modocs; so he asked for three 
hundred more men and four guns. 

That was in the days of the "peace policy" pro- 
claimed by President Grant; and now that much 
harm had been done and the state of public feeling 
in Oregon precluded any other sort of peace than 
would be procured by the hanging of the Indians, it 
was proposed that negotiations be opened with them. 
At first a commission of local men was appointed. 
Among its members were two of the Applegates, Jesse, 
a pioneer of the forties, and Oliver C. Applegate, the 
latter then in charge at Yainax and well acquainted 
with the Indians; A. B. Meacham, who had been 
[ 330 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

agent and superintendent, was also a member. These 
men knew the Modocs so well that they declined to 
meet them in council, where they would be in the 
power of the Indians. The Modocs, split by internal 
differences, would not meet the commissioners except 
on their own grounds. 

Another commission was then named, which in- 
cluded some very good friends of the Indians : Judge 
Roseborough of Yreka, Rev. Doctor Thomas, and 
L. S. Dyer, the latter then agent for the Klamath 
Indians. The commission got in touch with the Mo- 
docs, and some messages were exchanged, but nothing 
came of it. The Indians came to understand that the 
first thing required of them was the surrender to the 
justice of the white man of the eight or nine men in 
the band of Curly- Headed Doctor, known as the mur- 
derers. These men had committed brutal murders, 
and they preferred the comparative security of the 
Lava-Beds to the certainty of hanging at the hands of 
the whites. 

Captain Jack was evidently in favor of a compro- 
mise, but he had not the power to control his people 
to the extent of surrendering the Doctor and Hooker 
Jim. He sent his sister, known as Princess Mary, in 
with a statement of his position. He could not sur- 
render his men to certain death by hanging; if the 
whites wanted his horses to hang, he would give them 
up, but he could not give up men to die a death that 
would kill the soul as well as the body, — the Indians 
holding that death by strangulation would prevent the 
soul from escaping, and it would die with the body. 
Captain Jack's plea was not very specious, even from 
the Indian point of view. It simply made clear the 
[331 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

fact that he was not in a position to make peace, for 
his people did not believe that peace would be possi- 
sible for them while the killing of the settlers and the 
soldiers was unavenged ; but he sent word that if the 
soldiers were sent away he would come in and take a 
reservation on Lost River. This proposition was so 
absurd that it was not heeded. 

At this time it was certain that Captain Jack's 
chieftaincy was in jeopardy. He knew that he must lose 
in the end, and he did not see that he had enough at 
stake to go on with a hopeless war. It was shown at 
his trial that he wanted to resign his command, and 
that the rest of the Modocs, especially those whose 
necks were in most imminent danger, insisted upon 
retaining him in the leadership. His sister, Princess 
Mary, said afterwards that she expected Curly- Headed 
Doctor, Hooker Jim, Schonchin, Bogus Charley, and 
some of the others planned to kill him, but were afraid 
of the majority. But Jack would not fight, and he 
would not talk. He sat down and bemoaned his fate. 
When he proposed to the whites to stop the war and 
take the Lava-Beds for a reserv^ation — a last des- 
perate resort — and his proposition was rejected, he 
said he would do no more. And he persisted in this 
determination until his followers reviled him and 
called him a squaw. This remark, together with the 
attitude of his people at the time, aroused him to 
such an extent that he immediately announced that he 
would lead them to the finish, and that they should 
have no further ground for complaint. 

Toby Riddle saw him about this time. She had 
guided her husband, the interpreter, and a delegate 
from the commission, to the Modoc stronghold for 
[ 332 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

a conference. The delegate, Judge Steele, would have 
been killed but for the interference of Captain Jack, 
who guarded him personally. Toby says that, when 
she left the camp, a friendly Modoc told her not to 
come back again, nor to send any white man, else he 
would not return alive; and an evident plot on the 
part of the Modocs was discovered when the commis- 
sioners were invited to a council and armed Indians 
were seen in the vicinity. 

The personnel of the commission had been changed 
again, and when a proposition was brought in by Bo- 
gus Charley for a meeting of six unarmed Indians 
with as many whites, General Canby, who appreciated 
the danger of the undertaking, thought it his duty to 
attempt to make a peace and agreed to the proposi- 
tion; but Mr. Meacham, L. S. Dyer, Interpreter 
Riddle, and his wife Toby all said that it was going 
to certain death. Dr. Thomas said that it was a duty 
they owed to themselves, to the Indians, and to the 
people, and he would go. Meacham and Dyer agreed 
to go, and Riddle said he would go as a matter of 
duty, but he protested against the foolhardiness of it. 

The meeting was arranged for April 11, and it was 
to take place at what the Indians called the council 
tent, a natural sheltered place in the rocks. Bogus 
Charley accompanied the party, having remained in 
the camp of the whites the previous night, and they 
were met by Boston Charley and led to the Modoc 
council tent. General Canby, Dr. Thomas, and Riddle 
walked; Meacham, Dyer, and Toby Riddle were 
mounted. They were met at the council tent by Cap- 
tain Jack, Schonchin, Ellen's Man, Shacknasty Jim, 
Hooker Jim, and Black Jim. 
[ 333 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

The council was very brief, and the whites feared 
treachery from the first ; for they observed that all the 
Modocs were armed with revolvers, while they were 
unarmed. Jack made a speech, but while he was still 
talking Hooker Jim tried to start trouble by taking 
Meacham's overcoat from his saddle. Jack made 
some absurd demands and Meacham said, "Jack, 
you are a sensible man, talk like one." Schonchin told 
Meacham to talk straight, and demanded that the 
Modocs be given a reservation on Cottonwood Creek 
or Hot Creek, and that the soldiers be taken away. 
Schonchin was very much excited and Jack was stand- 
ing up. At the instant two Indians appeared from be- 
hind the rocks and ran in with some guns. They were 
identified as One-Eyed Jim and Slolox. Steamboat 
Frank, whose destiny led him into the pulpit some 
years later, ran up at the same time. Then Captain 
Jack, who was standing up in front of General 
Canby, said, '*A11 ready!" and drawing his revolver, 
snapped it in the general's face. It missed fire, and he 
instantly pulled the trigger again, shooting the veteran 
soldier under the eye. 

It was shown at the trial of these Indians that each 
one had his appointed victim, and all acted as Jack 
did. Bogus Charley, who had led the commissioners 
into the trap, shot Dr. Thomas in the left breast, 
wounding him badly; Schonchin fired at Meacham 
but missed, and Meacham drew a small derringer and 
fired, then ran, but was shot in the head and fell ap- 
parently dead. Dyer ran at the first sign of treachery. 
He was pursued by Hooker Jim, but he drove the 
murderer off and escaped. Shacknasty Jim and One- 
Eyed Jim attacked Riddle, but he got away, being 
[ 334 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

hit once, the bullet cutting off a piece of his ear. 
Slolox struck Toby Riddle with his rifle and was about 
to kill her, when Jack interfered and let her go. Gen- 
eral Canby, who had not been killed by Captain Jack's 
shot, also ran, but was brought down by a rifle-shot, 
and Jack then stabbed him in the neck, killing him. 

Toby Riddle, who was riding off, stopped and saved 
Meacham. He was lying apparently dead, and Boston 
Charley started to scalp him. The woman screamed, 
"The soldiers are coming!" and the other Indians, 
who were already afraid of the consequences of their 
dreadful deed, ran away, Boston Charley with the 
rest. Meacham was wounded four times, but lived, 
though he was so near dead that the Modocs, think- 
ing him dead, had stripped him before Boston Charley 
had begun to scalp him. He ever after bore a long scar 
on his hand, made by the scalping-knife that was 
stopped by Toby Riddle. 

I do not believe that the Modocs at that time thought 
there was any way of escaping the gallows, or death at 
the hands of the soldiers. Their attack on the envoys 
of an enemy was against all the traditions of their 
people. A safe-conduct given by a chief had always 
been held as sacred by the fighting races, even under 
the most exasperating circumstances — and the whites 
had not always been so scrupulous in carrying out 
like pledges. But there was not the slightest doubt 
that the assassination had been deliberately planned 
and as deliberately carried out. That it was not more 
effective — that the whole party of white people was 
not killed — was obviously not due to a lack of good- 
will on the part of the Modocs to carry out their plan, 
but rather to good fortune attending the survivors. 
[ 335 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

And the horror of the affair was added to by the fact 
that General Canby and Dr. Thomas were the only 
men among the commissioners who had complete 
faith in the good intentions of Jack and his people. 

It was said afterwards that Captain Jack was insane 
at the time of the assassination; but the skill he dis- 
played later in the fighting showed that his insanity 
— if he was mentally affected — w as only a mania for 
the spilling of the blood of the white man. The im- 
pudence of the attack proved that the Indians believed 
their position exceedingly strong and that they did 
not conceive of the strength in pursuit that would be 
shown by the whites under such a spur. 

The affair set the country afire. The proponents of 
the peace policy had not a word to say when a war of 
extermination was demanded and proclaimed — for 
General Canby and Dr. Thomas were foremost among 
the peace people. The troops were within striking 
distance, and even while the shots fired at the white 
commissioners were echoing through the Lava-Beds, 
they were advancing to the scene of the council, only 
to find the Indians fled, with all the fight taken out 
of them for the moment by the bold ferocity of the 
killing. It was evidenced that the Modocs were all 
affected by the same desire to kill under any circum- 
stances, for Scarfaced Charlie and another Indian 
had fired on and mortally wounded Lieutenant Sher- 
wood, who had come out of his camp in response to 
the call of a couple of Indians carrying a flag of truce. 
Charlie fired from ambush. The troops moved into 
the Lava-Beds beyond the council tent, but saw no 
sign of the Modocs and withdrew, carrying out the 
bodies of General Canby and Dr. Thomas. 
[ 336 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

At that day the board of strategy in Indian warfare 
sat in the newspaper offices of the east. When the 
story of the killing reached the wise men who con- 
ducted such affairs of the government, there was a 
howl against the Modocs, but incidentally it was sug- 
gested that it might well apply to Indians generally. 
The soldiers were quite of a mind with the newspaper 
editors, but those on the borders of the Lava-Beds 
were confronted by a condition, not a theory. The 
Modocs would not come out and be exterminated. 
The situation was illustrated in an incident told of 
"Bob" Toombs, a member of the Confederate cabi- 
net in the early days of the Civil War. 

When hostilities were impending Toombs said, "We 
can whip those d — d Yankees with popguns." After 
the war, when Toombs was in exile, a Job's-comforter 
sort of friend recalled his remark and asked him what 
he thought of the Yankees then. 

"I said we could whip 'em with popguns," said 
Toombs, "and I think so still; but, d — n 'em, they 
would n't fight that way!" 

The Modocs declined to come out and be killed, 
and the soldiers had to make war according to the 
plan of the enemy. 

A general and determined attack was made on 
what w^as supposed to be the Modoc position on the 
morning of the 14th of April. The Warm Spring 
scouts had located a part of the Modocs along the line 
of one of the frightful crevices that seam the face of the 
country. A mortar battery was brought up and the 
soldiers advanced under cover of its fire. The Indians 
were located by the gunners, and in two days' fighting 
— during which very few soldiers set eyes on a Modoc 
[ 337 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

headcloth — more execution was done by the shelling 
of the "cave" than by any other means during the 
succeeding engagements. A tremendous weight of 
metal, for that day and country, was thrown into the 
Indian position, and eleven Indians were killed, eight 
of them being women. It was told afterwards that one 
of the men came to his death by trying to bite off the 
burning fuse of a shell that dropped near him. He 
was blown to pieces. 

Captain Jack fought his people — men and women 
— with savage and deadly skill. They were absolutely 
protected from the rifle-fire of the soldiery, the rocks 
and crevices, the caves and chasms of the field afford- 
ing a cover that was never exposed except when a puff 
of smoke showed for an instant where an Indian had 
been concealed — for the Indian was never there 
after he had picked out a man and fired deliberately. 
The bullets of the soldiers flattened against the walls 
of rock, while the missiles of the Indian too often 
found a billet, as was shown in the list of casualties. 
Six soldiers w^ere killed and fourteen wounded. Cap- 
tain Jack, not being handicapped by lack of strong 
positions to which he might withdraw, put the battery 
out of service on the morning of the 17th by retreating 
w ith all his people through the crevice he had held. 
The Indians were a mile away before it was known 
that they had gone, and it was found that the earth had 
been cloven by some frightful convulsion of nature, 
and a gash a mile long, broken by sink-holes, had 
afforded the Modocs a safe and sure method of re- 
treat through what was effectually a bomb-proof pas- 
sage. So well covered was the retreat that it took 
the Warm Spring scouts, under Donald McKay, a 
[ 338 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

skillful and intelligent frontier-man, six days to locate 
them. 

Elaborate preparations were completed by April 
26 for an advance on the part of the Indian scouts and 
a body of troops on a reconnaissance in force into the 
centre of the fissure-creviced field of rock. A sand-hill 
commanding a considerable range of country from the 
midst of the Lava-Beds was the objective point, and 
Captain Thomas, fourth Artillery, was sent with four- 
teen scouts and sixty-four men, under six oflficers, to see 
if it was practicable to take the mortar and supplies in. 

There has been a great deal of criticism indulged in 
regarding the courage of some of the men in the party, 
an official report condemning some of those who re- 
turned unarmed ; but it was not in human nature to 
resist an opportunity to escape from certain slaughter 
that impended over the command before it had pro- 
ceeded very far into the Lava-Beds; for the Indians 
appear to have permitted the advance only in order to 
make the more certain of their aim. The command 
advanced in open skirmish order, but the nature of the 
country, the obvious impossibility of defending them- 
selves in case of attack, the experience of the past, all 
contributed to make the troops fearful of what they 
were doing. The march was carried on with infi- 
nite difficulty on account of the broken nature of the 
ground. No interference was met with, other than the 
natural conditions, until noon, by which time the com- 
mand had reached the base of the sand-hill and a halt 
was made. The sand-hill is fairly in the centre of an 
irregular piece of ground, which afforded no opportu- 
nity for shelter ; it is surrounded at a distance of about 
a quarter of a mile by ridges of lava. These ridges rise 
[ 339 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

at once from the open. The men on the sand-hill 
offered outstanding targets for Indians concealed in 
the rocky ridges, firing from shelter that was almost 
absolute. 

And the Modocs were there. Having allowed the 
little command to enter the trap, they made their 
presence manifest when a couple of men started out 
to reconnoitre one of the ridges. The Warm Springs 
scouts had been sent out from the body of the com- 
mand, and they were within reach of shelter when a 
couple of shots proclaimed the presence of the enemy. 
A number of white men of the command ran for cover 
when the firing started, the main body starting up the 
sand-hill. Only the fact that the Modocs w^ere not 
good marksmen at long range, and were insufficient 
in numbers to attempt to move in, saved the whites 
from annihilation. The oflScers, inspired by un- 
daunted courage, made the most desperate attempts 
to get their men to a place of safety, or some sort of 
shelter, but in vain. Where they attempted to force the 
ridges, there they found the Indians. With astonish- 
ing rapidity, aided by a thorough knowledge of the 
ground and the paths through the ridges and crevices, 
the Modocs anticipated every attempt to move in 
force. The whites were scattered, and one body of 
twenty men under Captain Thomas, being isolated, 
was practically wiped out. The Warm Springs scouts 
tried to join the soldiers, but were fired on by the 
troops, who mistook the scouts for hostiles. Five of 
the six officers in the party, Captain Thomas, Lieu- 
tenants Howe, Cranston, Wright, and Harris, were 
killed, as were eighteen men ; and seventeen men were 
wounded, several of them dying as a result of their 
[ 340 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

wounds. In the afternoon Major Greene, with a 
strong force, relieved the survivors, but had to camp 
on the battle-ground all night to prevent the Modocs, 
who were still hidden in the rocks, from scalping the 
dead and injured. The Indians drew off in the morn- 
ing, and it was found later that but one of them had 
been killed during the affair. 

For many days the Lava-Beds were as quiet and 
desolate as though the Modocs had been entombed 
in their caves. No sign of them could be discovered 
by the scouts, and the location of Jack and his men 
remained a mystery to the troops camped chafing on 
the border of the awful country, until a couple of 
squaws came in and said the Modocs had moved off 
to the southeast. The next day the scouts brought in 
a report that a supply train had been attacked and 
captured near Lake Tule, three of the escort being 
wounded. A detachment of cavalry was sent in pur- 
suit of the Indians, and for once Captain Jack, or 
some of his unruly insubordinates, made an error, by 
attacking the cavalry. The surprise was complete, 
being timed for the early morning of May 10 ; but the 
cavalrymen forced the fighting, compelled the Indi- 
ans to retire, and chased them into the Lava-Beds. 
The main body had been advised of the attack, and 
General Jefferson C. Davis, who had taken personal 
command, threw a number of detachments into the 
uninviting field, and a number of posts were thus 
established. These kept the Indians from uniting 
in attack. Moreover there was a row in the Modoc 
camp, and Hooker Jim with twelve warriors, in- 
cluding the murderers, left Captain Jack — thereby 
bringing about their undoing, but ultimately saving 
[341 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

their necks. The party under Jim was discovered 
and their trail followed, until they were scattered and 
broken ; finally, starving and dispirited, they came in 
and laid down their arms. 

As fine a lot of rascals as ever gained immunity 
from the rope made themselves safe when, on May 22, 
Hooker Jim, Bogus Charley, Shacknasty Jim, and 
Steamboat Frank offered to go into the Lava-Beds 
and bring Captain Jack in. It was claimed afterwards 
that they were not promised immunity for undertak- 
ing this service, and the interpreter was blamed, but 
they saved their necks, though they did not bring Jack 
in. The next morning Jack was surprised, Boston 
Charlie surrendered, and Princess Mary, Jack's sister, 
and seven other women were captured. Jack and his 
men got away through a crevice. The next day five 
more warriors surrendered, and Dr. Cabanisse went 
to talk to Jack. He talked, but Jack stayed out, 
though Schonchin and Scarf aced Charlie came in. 
On June 1 a squadron of the First Cavalry caught up 
with and surrounded Jack, who had only two warriors 
remaining with him. Then the man ceased fighting 
and dragged himself into camp. 

He uttered no word when he came except the re- 
mark, "My legs are no good." Inasmuch as he had 
been using them to no common purpose for some 
months, that was not surprising. 

With Jack there came in the two remaining warriors 
and fifteen women and children. The Modoc war 
was over, but at a frightful cost, considering the petty 
size of Jack's following. It was said that the chief 
might have stayed out for years if his people had been 
content to abide with his leadership. 
[ 342 ] 



CAPTAIN JACK AND HIS MODOCS 

Captain Jack, Schonchin John, Black Jim, Boston 
Charlie, One-Eyed Jim, and Slolox were tried by a 
military commission, charged with murder and as- 
sault with intent to kill, in violation of the rules of 
war, and condemned to death. One-Eyed Jim and 
Slolox were reprieved and their punishment fixed at 
imprisonment for life, the others were hanged at Fort 
Klamath, October 3, 1873. The informers were sent 
to Quapaw agency and Fort Marion, Florida, with 
the other Modocs. They have thriven, and a few 
years ago the redoubtable Bogus Charley had carried 
his people well along the road to Christianity. The 
Modocs live to-day in fellowship with their old foes, 
the Klamaths ; and while among them a few years ago, 
I saw no sign of the ferocious cunning which led these 
people to the sanguinary defense of the Lava-Beds a 
generation ago. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE MASTERLY RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND HIS 
NEZ PERCES 

Forced to leave the Country in which his Fathers died, he conducted 
a Campaign against Overwhelming Numbers and retreated, Fighting, 
across Two Territories. 

IN the months of June and July, 1900, I spent 
five weeks in the company of Chief Joseph of the 
Nez Perces, an Indian who developed, under 
pressure, military genius that would have made him 
one of the great captains of all time if his gifts had 
been cultivated and he had been given a wider field to 
operate in. As it was, with only the resources that an 
Indian living in a lean land could muster, he kept an 
army at bay, fought with front and rear, and forced 
his way across about fourteen hundred miles of wild 
country, in spite of the opposition of an active and 
ably generaled army under General O. O. Howard, 
from the western border of Idaho, across Idaho and 
Montana, to within a few miles of the Canadian 
boundary-line, in the Milk River country, Montana; 
and was taken only because he supposed he had made 
good his object and reached British territory. From 
army officers and Indians I gathered something of 
the character of the fight made by Joseph; but the 
story as I got it from the lips of the old chiief himself, 
during a trip down through Washington, Idaho, and 
Oregon, traversing the country in the fastnesses of 
which Joseph's people had lived for generations and 
[ 344 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

much of which was for him full of reminiscence, was a 
striking narrative, if indeed that could be called a nar- 
rative which was fragmentary and told a bit at a time. 
I had been ordered to Colville reservation, in 
Washington, to make inquiry into the practicability 
of removing Joseph and his people, who had been 
living on the Colville reservation since, decimated by 
disease, they were returned to the northwest from 
exile in the Indian Territory. Joseph had fought the 
army of the United States, when he left Idaho in 1877, 
because he was not allowed to return to the Wallowa 
Valley in northeastern Oregon. My experience of the 
man during our five weeks' close companionship on a 
trip authorized by the government, gave me the idea 
that he was making a determined effort to be allowed 
to return to the Wallowa Valley for the sole purpose 
of keeping the prestige he was losing — or rather 
hoping thus to regain that which he had lost. I may 
have been in error in this, for the deeds of his earlier 
life, his utterances in council, the persistence with 
which he disdainfully declined a home on the Lapwai 
reservation, Idaho, and demanded that he be allowed 
to live in the Wallowa Valley, showed that the man 
had in him a strong love for the soil. He said in coun- 
cil on one occasion, "A man who would not love the 
ground which holds the bones of his father and mother 
is worse than a beast." Whatever his object, late in 
life there could be no doubt that he sincerely longed 
for a home in the valley in which he had spent his 
youth, and that he was sadly disappointed when it 
became apparent that his people did not desire that 
which his heart longed for. The removal could not 
be effected. 

[345] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

The Wallowa Valley, which was described as a 
desert place when Joseph asked to live in it, in the 
early seventies, now blooms as the rose ; it is covered 
with fruit-farms, contains four thriving towns, Wal- 
lowa, Lostine, Enterprise, and Joseph, — Enterprise 
being the county seat of Wallowa County, Oregon; 
and the valley is a veritable garden. It was out of the 
question that the government should purchase enough 
of this valley to make a home for Joseph and his band 
— though there is grave doubt whether the title to the 
land ever passed out of the hands of Joseph and his 
people by any binding treaty. It is enough that the 
white man has turned the desert into a garden, that 
he should enjoy the profit of his enterprise. 

Of the history of the treaty-making which led to 
the Nez Perces war of 1877 — the only war the Nez 
Perces ever engaged in with the whites, by the way — 
I gained much from talking with old Joseph, and I 
was already familiar with a great deal of it. And this 
much I knew — and was the more sympathetic in 
considering the complaints of the old chief because of 
it : the Nez Perces were long suffering ; they killed no 
whites until they went on the war-path to prevent 
their forcible removal to the land appointed for their 
residence by a government commission in 1876 ; they 
committed few outrages during the brief and brilliant 
campaign when General Howard chased them ap- 
proximately fourteen hundred miles and into the arms 
of General Nelson A. Miles; and the character of 
Joseph was directly the opposite of that of Sitting 
Bull, who was as stolid and stubborn as Joseph was 
amenable and pliant when properly handled. 

Joseph was the son of Old Joseph, chief of the 
[ 346 ] 




CHIEF JOSEPH 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

Lower Nez Perces. The tribe was divided into many 
bands, and Old Joseph was one of many chiefs, and 
the wisest of his generation. "The Thunder-Trav- 
eling-over-the- Mountains" was the sonorous title en- 
joyed by the young Joseph, until, by the death of his 
father, he attained to the chieftaincy of his people. 
Old Joseph was a party to the treaty of 1855, made by 
Governor Isaac I. Stevens, in which the whole tribe 
joined in the sale of a part of their lands to the govern- 
ment. Old Joseph always maintained that he had no 
idea of selling at any time the land of his people in 
the Wallowa Valley. But it is certain that the other 
chiefs of his nation conveyed by treaty in 1863 all 
their land, except that contained in the Lapwai reser- 
vation; and as Old Joseph had joined them in the 
original tribal treaty, it was held that he had given an 
implied consent to be ruled by what the whole tribe 
did. Young Joseph said of the deal : — 

"It was as though I had some horses and a white 
man came and offered me a price for them. I told him 
I did not wish to sell, and he went to a neighbor of 
mine and said, ' Joseph has horses and I want to buy 
them, ' and the neighbor had made the price, sold the 
horses, and the white man had then come to me and 
said, *I have bought your horses; give them to me.'" 

The Upper Nez Perces sold the land and the white 
men went into the Wallowa Valley and took claims. 
For years there was argument and contention about it. 
Old Joseph never acquiesced in the sale, though it was 
said that his name was aflSxed to the treaty ; and young 
Joseph, acting on the dying words of his father, de- 
clined to live elsewhere than in the valley that had 
been the home of his fathers. It is certain that Joseph 
[ 347 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

and his people had the sympathy of those who were 
best acquainted with the merits of their contention. 
Even General Howard and the other military men, 
who were kept at their wit's ends to keep the younger 
Joseph in the reservation that had been appointed to 
him at Lapwai, said that he was right, in the main. 
That the government had some idea of restoring Jo- 
seph and the Lower Nez Perces to their home in the 
Wallowa was shown by the fact that in 1875 a com- 
mission was appointed to appraise the value of the 
improvements made by settlers, and a bill was intro- 
duced in Congress that year to appropriate the neces- 
sary money to compensate the settlers, something like 
sixty-seven thousand dollars, but for some inscrutable 
reason it did not pass, though Indians, settlers, and 
commissioners were all in favor of it. It was another of 
the blunders of which those times were so fruitful, and 
which were to bear other fruit in the midst of bloody 
fields ere long. And there were many councils in 
which Joseph took a part, and his voice was always for 
peace. General Howard, who was in command of the 
Department of the Columbia at the time, reported 
Joseph as having said at the last council : " I would 
rather give up my country than have war. I will give up 
my father's grave, but I will not shed the blood of a 
white man." That day Too-Hul-Hul-Sute, the chief 
of a band and the "Dreamer-Drummer" priest of a 
peculiar sect of spiritualists, whose belief was very like 
that of the ghost-dancers of later days, was put under 
arrest for saying in council that he would not go to the 
reservation at Lapwai, the other Indians might do as 
they liked. At this council there were present several 
bands, including that of Joseph, White Bird, Too- 
[348] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

Hul-Hul-Sute, Hush- Hush- Cute, which comprised a 
number of smaller bands, and the band of Looking 
Glass, who is said to have been the active soldier and 
executive of Chief Joseph in the campaign that was 
soon to open. Looking Glass was good to Joseph 
while he lived ; but when he was killed, Joseph hon- 
ored his memory by taking to wife his two widows — 
they were with the old chief at Nespelim, on the Col- 
ville reservation, when I visited there. 

May 14, 1877, it was that General Howard met 
Joseph in council for the last time, and Joseph made 
his last peace-talk to the whites. It ended by General 
Howard giving Joseph and the Lower Nez Perces 
thirty days in which to move on to the reservation that 
was set apart for them. The Indians were told that 
if they did not move in the appointed time, the soldiers 
would remove them. 

At that time there was no open talk of war, but an 
army officer, who was an observer of the Nez Perces, 
said of them that they performed cavalry tactics with 
perfect accuracy, and as though they had been thor- 
oughly drilled. He was laughed at, and a few weeks 
later those same tactics, and some more to the point, 
were practiced by the Indians in actual warfare. 
Chief Joseph may not have been responsible for this 
drilling, but when he, as leader, came to take com- 
mand of the warriors, he found that Looking Glass 
had a well-disciplined soldiery in the peace-loving 
people. Councils were held among the bands, and in 
these Joseph says he took no part, other than to urge 
peace. But he was the most influential of the Indians, 
and they went to war. Perhaps his peaceable inclina- 
tion was born in later days, but certain it is that the 
[ 349 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

chiefs were for war and determined to resist the sol- 
diery when the troops came. 

Some of the chiefs were for attacking the settlers. 
Joseph opposed this, saying that the settlers were 
men of peace. The others pointed to the fact that it 
was the settlers who had killed Joseph's brother; it 
was settlers who killed another Indian ; settlers headed 
by Harry Mason had whipped two Indians; and, 
lastly, it was settlers who ran off a band of their horses 
even after they had been notified to make ready to 
move. The Indians kept on drilling for the full limit 
of the thirty days, and they held nightly councils at 
Rocky Canon. Then there was an outbreak. 

The morning of the day upon which they expected 
the soldiers to come, they killed an old man named 
Devine on the Salmon River. There were only three 
Indians concerned in the killing, and these same three 
killed three men the next day and drove their stock 
off to Camas Prairie, where the main body was en- 
camped, and urged their fellows to the war-path. 
Joseph and his brother, Ollacutt, were not with the 
other Indians in the camp ; Joseph's wife was sick and 
the brothers were with her. White Bird, who was a 
chief of importance, declared for war, and that night 
there were ten white men killed on the Salmon River 
on the road between Mt. Idaho and Fort Lapwai. 
Then it was, when war was inevitable, that Joseph took 
command of his people and led them over to White 
Bird Canon, and made them ready to meet the sol- 
diers. 

It was on a day in June, twenty-three years later, 
a lovely day, and we were on a frightful mountain trail 
leading down to and overlooking the Grand Ronde 
[ 350 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

River in northeastern Oregon, that Joseph told me 
this part of his story. The trail was at once so narrow 
and so precipitous that, meeting another team coming 
up the trail, we, having but a light vehicle, stopped, 
took the buggy apart to let the other pass, and rested. 
The chief was very near to fighting his battles over 
again that day. His protestations of peaceful inten- 
tion disappeared, as he warmed to his story and told 
of the beginning of the campaign. 

"I had two hundred and forty fighting men at 
first," said the old chief, "but Looking Glass came 
in afterwards with more. I knew that there would 
be much fighting, for I had talked to my people, and 
it was settled that we would go to the buffalo country 
over to the east. I told my people that they must not 
fight with settlers, but wait for the soldiers, and our 
scouts told us that the soldiers would soon come after 
us. They did n't think that the Nez Perces would 
stand against the troops. I found that our young men 
had been making ready for the trouble, and so had 
the other chiefs, and we had many guns and much 
ammunition — we had more before the fighting was 
over," the old man added grimly. "Until the first 
fight had been fought and the victory had been given 
to the Nez Perces, I did not think that we would go 
farther than the buffalo grounds. After the fight, I 
knew that I would have to lead my people to the coun- 
try where Sitting Bull had found a refuge when pur- 
sued." 

I asked Joseph if he knew at the time what lay be- 
tween him and Canada, and he waved his arm over 
to the east. " We knew that the distance was great, but 
it is easier to travel and fight than to die. Our young 
[351 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

men were not afraid, and they knew the Indian and 
the white man's way of fighting." 

I asked him where he got his knowledge of military 
tactics, and he replied that he had no such knowledge, 
— that his people had seen the cavalry drill and they 
could manoeuvre as the white troops did in time of 
peace. " The Great Spirit puts it in the heart and head 
of man to know how to defend himself." In this way 
he accounted for the fact that he employed every ob- 
structive and offensive device known in the art of 
war ; and if instinct led him to a knowledge of how to 
throw up defensive works as he did to obstruct the 
attack of Howard and Gibbon, it was very fortunate 
that his instinct had not been cultivated. 

And this is the story I gathered from him. He did 
not give the designations of the troops involved, but 
in every engagement he knew very accurately the 
number opposed to him, and there was never any 
doubt in his mind about the strength of the force he 
had to cope with at every stage of his progressive 
flight, until he made his last stand. 

Colonel Perry had been sent down from Fort Lap- 
wai to chastise the marauding Nez Perces. With the 
fatuous ignorance that characterized the opening of 
most of our Indian wars, the force under Perry was 
absurdly inadequate to the task given it. It was sup- 
posed that the mere show of military strength would 
send the Nez Perces scurrying to their burrows on 
the reservation. Joseph waited calmly for the attack, 
and early in the morning of June 17 he lay in the 
White Bird Canon, watching the approach of Perry 
and his force, riding down the broad trail into the 
canon, for the purpose of surprising the Indians. The 
[ 352 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

Indians wanted to move across the Salmon River and 
get away, but Joseph asserted his authority and said 
the fight must be fought there, and he ambushed a 
number of mounted Indians to strike the command 
after it had passed, while the rest of the fighting force 
was hidden across the trail. There was not an Indian 
in sight, and the troops were moving easily down on 
the distant village, when every tree and rock suddenly 
became alive, and the valley blazed with a fire of 
guns that threw the troops into confusion. Many men 
fell, and the order was given to retreat to the ridge 
that had been passed. Then it was that the Indians 
in ambush arose and struck the command on the 
flank. The retreat became a rout ; but when the troops 
escaped from the canon they were put into some sort 
of order. They got away at a gallop, and Joseph pur- 
sued them up to within four miles of Mt. Idaho. 

General Howard woke up to the situation and at 
once understood that the peaceable Nez Perces had 
turned into a military organization that it would take 
a force to control ; but it required some time to get 
men on the ground. Joseph kept changing that ground, 
and there were many small engagements, in which the 
Indians invariably had the advantage, except in an 
attack made on the band of Looking Glass, who had 
not yet joined Joseph. It was proposed to arrest 
Looking Glass, for it was known that he was a capable 
man and would be an able lieutenant to Joseph. 
Looking Glass waited too long before breaking camp 
and was surprised by a considerable force, his own 
people being greatly outnumbered. Here he showed 
his generalship, for he got away with all of his people 
and camp impedimenta, though compelled to aban- 
[ 353 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

don seven hundred ponies. He joined forces with 
Joseph, and they moved out to the east and south. 
On the Mt. Idaho road, they attacked a command of 
regulars, and killed many of the soldiers. Joseph said 
that this detachment was in his way and that he had 
to disperse them to get through. He knew by this time 
that General Howard was organizing a force, and he 
proposed to make his stand for an engagement with 
a superior force where he would have the choice of 
ground. He made for the Clearwater, moving with 
great rapidity across the Lapwai reservation, and by 
the time Howard was ready to strike him, he had his 
lodges set up beyond the stream and was in position. 
The battle that ensued showed the mettle of the In- 
dians and the capacity of their leader. 

General Howard, who had four hundred men, two 
gatlings, and a howitzer, advanced in formation for 
a pitched battle and left his supply-train practically 
unguarded in the rear. Joseph knew instinctively that 
the commissary was the important feature of the white 
man's campaign, and he sent a considerable portion 
of his force to attack and destroy the train. The 
movement was unsuccessful, because Howard dis- 
covered it in time and sent back a force to protect the 
commissary. The diversion helped the Indians, for 
they had force enough to protect their position, as 
Joseph thought. All the afternoon of July 1 1 the bat- 
tle raged, the troops and Indians both throwing up 
works, from which the fighting was continued during 
the night, and no progress was made during the next 
day, until Howard was reinforced by a considerable 
number of cavalry, when, with artillery and cavalry, 
an attack was made on the left of the position of the 
[ 354 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

Indians. Joseph fought for a few minutes against the 
attack, but knowing that he could do nothing in a 
hand-to-hand encounter, he fled. The artillery was 
so close in, that it commanded the Indian village 
across the river, and it was abandoned, practically, 
though the Indian women were already making off 
with a great share of the equipage and the ponies. 
Joseph formed his men again and returned, with a 
show of force, to intercept the soldiers, who were fol- 
lowing the fugitives fast; he stopped the troops and 
engaged them long enough to give the fleeing people 
a good start, then gave up fighting and scurried after 
them at a pace that defied pursuit. Howard had won 
the battle, but with a very considerable loss. The 
Indian loss was trifling, and Joseph was on his way 
to the east. 

The next morning Howard continued his pursuit. 
Joseph picked out a spot for an ambuscade, set his 
rear-guard to protect the retreat, and pushed the main 
body of his people on to the fastnesses of the Lolo 
trail. The advance of Howard's force fell into the 
ambuscade, and the whole column was thrown into 
confusion and halted. Before night Joseph was safe 
for the time, in a position that he might have held 
indefinitely against an equal force. He knew that no 
one could pass him on the Lolo trail, which crosses 
the Bitter Root Mountains, and Howard knew it too. 
The general made a feint of sending a part of his 
command back to Lapwai, intending to make a 
forced march by a detour and come in at the rear of 
Joseph. Joseph did not wait for the trap to spring. 
He decamped, and when the soldiers struck the trail 
fifteen miles behind where Joseph should have been, 
[ 355 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

that astute warrior had passed the junction-point and 
was making his way over into the valley of the Bitter 
Root. Howard could do nothing but follow him and 
telegraph word to the posts in Montana that Joseph 
was coming. 

Freed from much of their camp equipment, but 
with plenty of ponies and supplies, the Indians moved 
with incredible rapidity, and Joseph was in the midst 
of the settlements of the Lolo River, while he was 
supposed to be still in the mountains. 

Here he gave evidence that he only wanted to make 
good his flight, for he made no attempt to molest the 
settlers. A fort had been built some distance ahead on 
the trail, and Looking Glass was sent to interview the 
people occupying it. He told them that the Indians 
did not want to molest them, but simply to pass un- 
hindered. The volunteers told them to go on. In two 
towns, Stevensville and Corwallis, the Nez Perces 
actually stopped and traded with the whites, leaving 
in plenty of time to keep well ahead of Howard, who 
was coming up. 

The telegraph, which brought about the downfall 
of Joseph in the end, had been busy, and troops were 
moving to intercept him. He knew nothing of the 
telegraph, but his instinct told him that he must not 
loiter. General Gibbon was riding as fast as his 
teams could carry him, across from Fort Shaw to Fort 
Missoula on the Bitter Root, to cut off the flight of the 
Indians. He had one hundred and ninety infantrymen 
in wagons, and hoped, at least, to stay the fugitives 
until Howard came up. Joseph knew what he might 
expect, and he got to and passed the Bitter Root before 
Gibbon arrived, but Gibbon continued in pursuit. 
[ 356 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

Joseph had turned to the south, but it was only for 
the purpose of getting into a country where he might 
utilize his force to greater advantage, for he knew that 
he could not go through directly to his objective point 
on the Canadian boundary. He went up the Bitter 
Root Valley, looking out for Howard, but paying no 
attention to Gibbon, not knowing that the latter was 
on his trail ; and he was resting in the Big Hole Valley 
when Gibbon came up with him. 

General Gibbon had moved swiftly, and his pursuit 
was masked. Joseph admitted at the end that he was 
surprised in the Big Hole, but he came out of it very 
well. 

In the morning of August 8 the Indians of Joseph's 
band were aroused by the presence of the soldiers in 
their very midst. The troops dashed right through the 
camp, but the Indians with marvelous facility got away 
in every direction, took to the ravines, allowed the sol- 
diers to take the camp, formed into some sort of order, 
and while the troops were still flushed with the success 
of the surprise, Joseph drove down on them with 
his whole force. He retook the camp and forced the 
troops to withdraw to the protection of the timber. 
Again there was a battle that lasted during the day. 
Joseph threw up earthworks and advanced his men 
under cover. Repeatedly he stormed the position of 
Gibbon ; he even captured a howitzer, and if his peo- 
ple could have served the gun his victory might have 
been more complete than it was. Near midnight the 
Indians had fought Gibbon's command to a stand- 
still, in spite of the most determined bravery and de- 
fense of the troops. The chief could not capture the 
command, but he took everything movable, including 
[357 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

many of the horses, and vanished. Twelve hours 
later Howard arrived, too late to change the disastrous 
outcome of the fight, in which Gibbon was badly 
wounded. Many white men had fallen, and the In- 
dian loss was comparatively heavy, especially in view 
of the fact that Looking Glass, the diplomat, but not 
the ablest of Joseph's lieutenants of that name, lay 
dead on the field to be scalped by the Bannock scouts 
belonging to Howard's party. A great number of men 
and women were among the dead left by the Indians 
on the field, the surprise being complete, so far as they 
were concerned. 

During ten days Joseph moved leisurely. Still look- 
ing for a pass through which he might run the gauntlet 
to the north and east, he crossed into Idaho again and 
came into Camas Prairie with his stock refreshed — 
and replenished to the extent of about three hundred 
head taken from the whites. His people were rested, 
but he knew that fighting must begin again, for How- 
ard, relentless in his pursuit, was but one day behind 
him. Joseph told me that he had expected to be at- 
tacked by the Montana militia when he was struck by 
Gibbon, for he thought he had shaken Howard off. 
He was surprised to find Howard so close, and did not 
know that the general was in command when he made 
a bold attempt to cut out the stock belonging to the 
troops following after he had started east in Montana. 
He turned back in the night, sent in scouts to cut the 
hobbles of the leaders of the herd, then rode down on 
the herd before the pickets knew what was happening. 
The horses were grazing wide, it being thought quite 
out of the question that Joseph should have the temer- 
ity to make an attack on a foe that contemplated sur- 
[ 358 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

prising him in good time. Whooping like fiends, the 
Indians went at the horses, and before any more men 
than the pickets on herd duty got into an encounter, 
the Nez Perces were off again to the shadowy east, out 
of which they had come, and with them all of the 
horses of the command, except about enough to mount 
three troops of cavalry. These went at once in pursuit 
and picked up stragglers to the number of a few score, 
but gave over the pursuit with morning. 

Joseph had been informed that a detachment had 
been sent by Howard to occupy Tacher's Pass, 
through which he proposed to go to make his way into 
the Yellowstone Park; and he moved his main body 
ahead to reach the pass, while a body of raiders went 
back in pursuit of the cavalry, who had retaken some 
of the horses. Part of the recaptured mounts they 
captured again, then made off for the mountains, 
reached the pass before Lieutenant Bacon and his 
command, and got clear away into the National Park, 
leaving Howard to sit down and wait for fresh mounts 
and supplies. It was exasperating work for Howard, 
but the Nez Perces, though they had lost many men 
and women, were enjoying it, and Joseph, who was a 
very vain man, had come to know that he was per- 
forming a military feat that would make him famous. 

As evidence of his attitude toward the non-combat- 
ant whites at this time, Joseph told me how he had 
captured three men and two women in the Park and 
had set them at liberty, unharmed, after holding them 
for three days. This must have been the Cowan party, 
of which three men were killed in the Indian attack. 
As a matter of fact, Joseph did restrain his Indians 
and none of the captives were ill-treated. 
[ 359 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

Colonel Sturgis with the Seventh Cavalry had been 
sent out to intercept Joseph, but the chief got wind of 
the movement. He went leisurely down to the Yel- 
lowstone, crossed that river, and started in the di- 
rection of Stinking River, a feint which cost Sturgis 
much time, for, instead of going on, Joseph changed 
his course, went down to Clark's Fork, and on to the 
Yellowstone again. Sturgis, with three hundred and 
fifty men, was by this time on the trail, and he caught 
up with Joseph in the wild and arid country across 
the Yellowstone. The country was much broken, a 
sage-brush plain split up by deep ravines. On Septem- 
ber 13, Joseph stopped to give battle and engaged the 
troops with his rear-guard. It was a most exasperating 
thing for Sturgis to see the main body of the enemy 
slip away while he was engaged with the wild riders of 
the Nez Perces rear, and he sent a detachment under 
Captain Benteen to cut off the Indian main body, 
which was making for Cannon Greek. This detach- 
ment caught up with the herds and cut off a bunch of 
ponies, but could not get close to the Indians before 
they reached the creek, where they made a stand by 
occupying the natural defenses while the women and 
ponies were being hurried through the canon, Sturgis 
fought through the day, but had made little headway 
beyond forcing the Nez Perces to retire down the 
canon, and he withdrew his men and went into camp 
at the entrance to the canon. The Indians were too 
much exhausted to press forward, and in the morning 
the friendly Crows, who were with Sturgis, cut out a 
great herd of their stock. But they were still well 
mounted and kept ahead of Sturgis, who could not 
get near enough to do any effective fighting. The 
[ 360 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

cavalry was distanced in the flight along the Mussel- 
shell River and around the Judith Mountains, and, 
having shaken off his foe, Joseph reached the Mis- 
souri River September 23. The distances covered 
were tremendous, and there had been hard fighting, 
but the Nez Perces were within reach of the goal, as 
Joseph thought. Joseph attacked a little fort at the 
mouth of Cow Creek on the Missouri, but did not 
press the attack, and had a skirmish with a small force 
under Major Ilges, who had moved from Fort Benton 
to engage with the Nez Perces. Moving to the north, 
Joseph went on leisurely, thinking he had lost his 
pursuers and that he had plenty of time to get across 
the line and reach Sitting Bull's place of refuge. He 
went into camp with a view to remaining some time 
on Snake Creek, near the Bear Paw Mountains, and 
prepared to rest. He thought he was safe across the 
Canadian line. As a matter of fact, he was thirty miles 
south of the boundary. 

This mistake cost him dearly, and he almost wept 
when he told me of his feelings when he was again 
attacked. 

The story of his last fight Joseph told me at Lewis- 
ton, Idado, where we remained a day upon our return 
trip from his old home at Wallowa. We had had a 
long, wearisome journey by team conveyance, and 
felt that we needed a day's rest; and it was after we 
had crossed the Snake River, with his good-humor 
restored, that I led him back to his story. 

Colonel (now General) Nelson A. Miles, retired, 
was destined to wear the laurels that General Howard 
had pursued for so many weary miles. Howard was 
[361 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

still far away, and Joseph safe enough from his pur- 
suit, if the chief had kept on a few miles farther 
before going into camp. Miles was at Fort Keogh, 
on the Yellowstone, when he was ordered to head off 
Joseph. His equipment was equal to the task of cop- 
ing with Joseph at his best, and at this time the Nez 
Perces force was dreadfully reduced by death and 
wounds. Miles's command consisted of cavalry and 
mounted infantry, with a force of scouts, and a couple 
of guns. He made a rapid march to Carroll, got a 
trace of Joseph, — which was plain enough, for his 
trail was over the whole country, — and left Carroll 
for the Bear Paw Mountains, where Joseph was even 
then. 

"I sat down," said Joseph, "in a fat and beautiful 
country. I had won my freedom and the freedom of 
my people. There were many empty places in the 
lodges and in the council, but we were in the land 
where we would not be forced to live in a place we did 
not want. I believed that if I could remain safe at a 
distance and talk straight to the men that would be 
sent by the Great Father, I could get back the Wal- 
lowa Valley and return in peace. That is why I did 
not allow my young men to kill and destroy the white 
settlers after I began to fight. I wanted to leave a 
clean trail, and if there were dead soldiers in that 
trail I could not be held to blame. I had sent out run- 
ners to find Sitting Bull, to tell him that another band 
of red men had been forced to run from the soldiers of 
the Great Father, and to propose that we join forces 
if we were attacked. My people were recovering their 
health and the wounded were getting better of their 
hurts. I was ready to move on and seek out a per- 
[ 362 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

manent camp when, one morning, Bear Coat and his 
soldiers came in sight and stampeded our horses, and 
I knew that I had made a mistake by not crossing into 
the country of the Red Coats, also in not keeping the 
country scouted in my rear." 

On the sixth day after leaving Carroll, Miles came 
upon the camp of the Nez Perces. His scouts had 
brought in the news of the find two days previously. 
No rear-guard was maintained by Joseph, and Miles 
intended to surprise the Indians, by making the at- 
tack early in the morning. The approach to the camp 
was uncovered, but the Indians saw the soldiers com- 
ing in time to get to cover in the hills and ravines. The 
pony herd, which was grazing some distance from the 
camp, was cut off in the first attack and captured, but 
the Indians, having reached cover, poured such a 
deadly fire into the ranks of the troopers that they 
withdrew, after losing a great number of their men, 
and invested the position occupied by the Nez Perces. 
Joseph told me that he could have escaped easily 
enough by leaving the wounded, the infirm, and the 
children, but he thought he could make terms with 
Miles, — in case Sitting Bull, to whom he had sent 
urgent messages, did not come to his aid. For four 
days the fighting went on. Miles being joined by 
Howard and his staff after he had the situation well 
in hand ; and on the fifth day Howard sat by and saw 
Chief Joseph surrender himself into the hands of his 
subordinate. 

There is no doubt — indeed, the fact has never been 
questioned — that Colonel Miles accepted the sur- 
render of Joseph on honorable terms. That oflBcer 
assured Joseph that he would be sent back to his 
[ 363 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

reservation in the spring. Miles thought the promise 
would be carried out; so did Howard. Miles made the 
same offer to White Bird, who had escaped with some- 
thing over one hundred people just before the sur- 
render, and who was safe in British territory. With 
this understanding, Chief Joseph brought in the peo- 
ple who had survived the fearful march and tremen- 
dous fighting, numbering four hundred and thirty-one 
men, women, and children — White Bird had taken 
many fighting men with him when he escaped. The 
Nez Perces were sent to Indian Territory instead of 
being sent home, and were not transferred to the 
Colville reservation, where they now live, for many 
years. Then they were broken and decimated in 
numbers. 

The epic of Joseph's retreat has not yet been writ- 
ten, though some of the men concerned in it have 
written of the affair from the point of view of personal 
experience. The magnificent distances covered by the 
red and the white men in that campaign have seldom 
been paralleled in warfare, and it is as well that the 
personal and official record of the flight and pursuit 
has been chronicled by General Howard, else it might 
be regarded a few years hence as a romance of those 
days in the Far West which are no more. From the 
beginning of the pursuit across the Lolo trail to the 
embarkation of Howard's command for the return 
journey (July 27 to October 10), seventy-five days 
elapsed, and the exact distance covered by the troops 
is recorded as 1321 miles. It is certain that Joseph 
traveled a greater distance, for he frequently doubled 
on his trail to throw off his pursuers ; and he carried 
with him his women, children, and horses. It was a 
[364] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

marvelous performance, looked at from the point of 
view either of the pursued or of the pursuing. 

As I made very accurate notes of the statements 
made by men concerned in the flight and wholly fa- 
miliar with the circumstances, it is as well that some 
disputed matters should be set at rest here. It has 
been assumed that there was only one Looking Glass 
with Joseph. As a matter of fact there were two of 
that name. One was a warrior, the other a diplomat, 
and both of chiefly rank. Edward Raboin, of Lapwai, 
Idaho, was with me as interpreter when I made the 
trip with Joseph in 1900, and I had the story from 
him; the Reverend Mark Arthur, a Nez Perce full- 
blood, and an ordained Presbyterian minister, together 
with Judge James of the Indian police court at Fort 
Lapwai, cleared up to my satisfaction some points in 
dispute. Raboin knew all of the Nez Perces, and the 
Reverend Mr. Arthur, who was a lad of about ten 
years at the time of the trouble, was with Joseph 
throughout the flight, escaping to Canada after the 
surrender to Miles. They all three agreed that Rain- 
bow, who was also sometimes called Looking Glass, 
together with Five Wounds, both very prominent In- 
dians, were killed at the Big Hole battle, and that 
Looking Glass, the great leader, and OUicutt — Jo- 
seph's younger brother — were both killed at Bear 
Paw by Miles's command. Mr. Arthur declared to me 
that he saw all these men killed and that there could 
be no mistake about it, and in this he was fully cor- 
roborated by the others. Mr. Arthur said that Look- 
ing Glass made a desperate attempt to escape after 
Joseph's surrender and was literally shot to pieces by 
the soldiers. White Bird, who was also prominent in 
[ 365 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the Joseph camp, escaped to Canada and lived there 
until his death, a few years ago. 

Joseph went with me down into the country where 
the grave of his father was made. He found, instead 
of the desert that surrounded him in his youth, a rich 
and bountiful country. He scarcely recognized the 
Wallowa Valley, but we found the grave of Old Jo- 
seph, his father. A white man who owned the ground 
in which the old man's bones were interred, with a 
spirit too rare among his kind, had the plat enclosed 
and kept the grave in such condition that the heart of 
Joseph, who was with me, was melted, and he wept. 
It would have been an impossibility to replace the 
band of Joseph in their old home. Towns and vil- 
lages stood where the pony-herds of the Nez Perces 
were wont to graze on the scant grass ; orchards grew 
where the sage-brush had been, and Joseph knew not 
his old home. 

I took the old man back to the Colville reservation. 
His people had no desire to follow him. His glories 
had been forgotten and a new chief reigned "who 
knew not Joseph." The old man died on September 
21, 1904, and his death recalled for a day the accom- 
plishments of the red-skinned general who had made 
one of the greatest campaigns in the history of the 
world's wars. 

The Historical Society of the State of Washington 
erected a monument to Joseph's memory at his grave 
at Nespelim, Washington, up the Nespelim River 
about six miles from its confluence with the Colum- 
bia River, which monument is said to have been paid 
for by Mr. Samuel Hill, son-in-law of James J. Hill, 
[ 366 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

the railroad magnate, but erected by the state of Wash- 
ington, in name, to give it historical prominence. The 
monument was dedicated on June 20, 1905, in the 
presence of Joseph's band of Nez Perces, Captain 
John McA. Webster, U. S. A., retired, agent of the 
Coh ille reservation, and a large concourse of promi- 
nent white persons, residents of the states of Washing- 
ton, Oregon, and Idaho. 

Since writing the foregoing I have been over the 
Bear Paw battle-field and was greatly impressed by 
its striking testimony to the tremendous military 
capacity of Chief Joseph. And I was even more 
profoundly impressed by the corroboration in de- 
tail given to the story of Joseph by the indestructi- 
ble evidence of the topography of the battle-ground. 
That the event should have been retained with great 
fidelity in the mind of the old man, I expected, for 
these children of nature have faithful and accurate 
memories. But Joseph had taken for granted many 
things which were not revealed to me until I went over 
the scene of the battle. The old warrior had assumed 
that I would know that he had fought the white sol- 
diers with skill and sagacity such as might have been 
demonstrated by a man versed in the military science. 
I did know that he had displayed tremendous re- 
sources, but I could not know that he had put aside 
the cunning of his kind and had met the white men 
with such a defense as General Miles himself, or 
General Howard, might have resorted to had either 
of them been in charge of the Nez Perce defense. 

The battle-field lies on Snake Creek, Montana, 
about thirty miles southwest of the Fort Belknap 
[ 367] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

agency. In the calm of an October day, 1907, I went 
over the ground which attained such bloody fame 
thirty years previously, and which, in its principal 
features, is unchanged. The topography and general 
aspect of the field, excepting the slight changes 
brought about by the work of the husbandmen, 
doubtless present the same appearance as on the eve 
of this historical conflict, September 30, 1877. But 
my eye missed the Indian camp; there were no ser- 
ried ranks of bluecoats. With old Joseph's story in 
my mind, however, I had no difliculty in following 
the details of the fight. With me were Major W. R. 
Logan, of the Fort Belknap agency, William Bent, 
who was a scout with General Miles at the time of the 
fight, and Bernard Striker, a Gros Ventre mixed-blood 
who knew the field well. The visit was full of melan- 
choly interest for Major Logan, for his father. Cap- 
tain Logan, Seventh Infantry U. S. A., was killed at 
the Big Hole battle with the Nez Perces. 

The location of the Indian camp at the time it 
was surprised by Miles's command was as distinctly 
marked as are the ancient remains of the fortified en- 
campments left as evidences of the Roman occupa- 
tion of Britain. Joseph had intrenched himself with 
speed, skill, and sagacity, such as is altogether incon- 
ceivable to one knowing Indian methods of fighting 
and Indian characteristics. It is difficult to believe 
that the site for the camp and its entrenchment was 
selected by a man knowing nothing of military sci- 
ence according to the schools. All along that front of 
the camp which was exposed to attack, rifle-pits were 
constructed and fought with courage and skill. As 
Joseph was surprised, these pits must have been dug 
[ 368 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

after the attack in which Miles cut off the herd; at 
least their construction must have been completed 
after the first attack. The fact that the first attack, 
which was made in strength and in the evident ex- 
pectation of forcing the defense at the first blow, was 
repulsed with such bloody results that twenty-three 
soldiers were killed by the Indians on their first charge, 
indicates that Joseph's fighting men were under 
cover. The valiant work of Sergeant Martin, of D 
Troop, Seventh Cavalry, who was killed within the 
Indian lines, and of other heroes whose names have 
not been recalled, was wholly ineffective in the face of 
the withering fire that was directed at the troopers 
from the rifle-pits. Joseph was fighting under condi- 
tions wholly new to the troops ; it was almost unheard 
of that Indians should entrench themselves in arti- 
ficial coverts, and the consequences were fatal to the 
troops. 

The rifle-pits, which still remain as clearly marked 
as on the day of the fight, except that grass has grown 
over the ground, were calculated with great skill. 
They were dug separately, but connected by under- 
ground passages, so that, without exposing them- 
selves, the Indians could move about from one pit to 
another. The meagreness of the tools with which this 
work was done — for the digging was accomplished 
by means of knives, and shovels made of frying-pans 
with sharpened edges — made it a task of great labor. 
But the ingenious character of these defenses accounts 
for the resistance which was carried on for four days 
against a force that was immensely superior to that of 
Joseph in point of numbers and equipment. I could 
easily imagine the astonishment of the troops at being 
[ 369 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

foiled by a defense which could not have been looked 
for in a position so feebly manned, though chosen with 
due regard for the military advantages which Joseph 
never overlooked. 

The rifle-pits stretch across that front of the In- 
dian camp from which an attack must come, — the 
natural condition being utilized for protection from 
other quarters ; and I could not help wondering what 
the result would have been if Sitting Bull and his 
people, who were encamped in the British possessions 
about one hundred and fifty miles north from Joseph's 
camp, had been brought to the assistance of Joseph 
before the troops attacked. Of course, the ultimate 
conclusion must have been the same; but if that for- 
tified and entrenched position on Snake Creek had 
been held by anything like the force which Joseph 
had with him when he began his retreat, the victory 
of the whites must have been won at a fearful cost. 

With its melancholy evidences of the days that 
were fraught with terror on the border, the battle- 
field is wholly neglected. It presents no other proof 
of the fact that it was the scene of one of the decisive 
battles of the Indian wars, except the disturbed face 
of the ground where the rifle-pits were dug, and a 
yawning trench, some thirty feet long and six feet 
wide, where the fallen soldiers were hastily buried, 
but which now is vacant, the bodies having been re- 
moved and reinterred at Fort Assinniboine. The pits 
and the trench are being obliterated by the efl^orts of 
nature to cover with a veil of sward these souvenirs 
of the bloody past on the frontier. In a few years the 
roller of time will have utterly removed even these 
evidences of the past, and this notable field, with its 
[ 370 ] 



RETREAT OF JOSEPH AND NEZ PERCES 

mute testimony to the bravery of the men who made 
easy the way of the pioneer of civilization, and to the 
skill and courage of the red men in defending them- 
selves against the inevitable, will be as other scenes 
of agricultural peace and prosperity. It seemed to 
me that the great nation, which had found the means 
to inspire the men of General Miles's command with 
the heroism which was displayed in the conquering of 
Joseph, might well be at the cost of erecting some 
enduring acknowledgment of the fact that here was 
fought one of the bloodiest and most desperate of 
those many fights by means of which the land of the 
red man was made the possible habitation of the pale- 
face, who is now established in his inheritance. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

How the White River Utes left the Uintah Reservation, Utah, and 
defied the State of Wyoming and the Federal Authorities — The EfiFect 
of Diplomacy. 

WHILE my function as an official of the gov- 
ernment dealing with Indians has had to 
do with diplomacy rather than with force, 
I am free to admit that sternly repressive methods have 
generally been effectual in teaching the Indian that 
he must behave himself. For, child as he is, the In- 
dian has an appreciative sense of justice when it is 
administered without weakness on the one hand or 
a show of ill-temper on the other. His sense of meum 
and tuum is not as sharply defined as it might be, in 
all cases ; but, since he has come to an appreciation of 
the fact that the white man is his superior in strength 
and intelligence, he has held himself in restraint to a 
degree not to be understood by men who knew the red 
man of a generation ago. 

All of which is preliminary to the statement of my 
opinion that the Indians who have not felt the heavy 
hand of retribution for crimes against the whites have 
escaped a very essential part of their training in civili- 
zation. I say it with no bitterness toward the people 
themselves, but I feel certain that if the Utes had been 
thoroughly chastised after the Meeker massacre in 
1879, they would not be the irresponsible, shiftless, 
and defiant people they are to-day. They had citizen- 
[ 372 ] 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

ship thrust upon them without any knowledge of its 
responsibilities. They escaped retributive justice at 
a period of their tribal existence when the sense of 
their ill-doings was strong upon them, and they are the 
worse for it. Among my aboriginal friends, I have 
found that those who were taught to respect the whites 
on the field of battle have been most amenable to the 
white man's reasoning when he reasoned for their 
good according to the lights of latter days. 

What will very likely prove to be the last serious 
defiance of the laws which the white man has imposed 
upon the Indian for his own good and for the peace and 
comfort of his neighbors, engaged the attention of the 
government in a most exasperating, though practi- 
cally bloodless, campaign in pursuit of a band of Utes 
in the fall of 1906. For many weeks the settlers of a 
part of Wyoming were kept in a state of alarm that 
sometimes approached the panic stage by this little 
body of Indians, numbering not more than four hun- 
dred, of whom but a fraction were male adults. It 
would not be fair to say that the Indians were more 
than unruly, nor would it state the case to say that 
the state of Wyoming was terrorized ; but the Indians 
were roaming through a section that was compara- 
tively sparsely settled, and their attitude caused great 
concern among the isolated ranchmen, through whose 
country they progressed with an utter disregard of 
the fact that they were generally trespassing upon the 
property of others. They might have been checked 
by the state authorities, — there is no doubt of that, 
— but there was evidently some doubt in the minds 
of the local officials as to how the wanderers should 
be treated, — as marauding Indians or as citizens of 
[ 373 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the United States and amenable to the laws of the 
commonwealth. 

They were Utes, largely White Rivers, and they had 
been practically enfranchised by having lands al- 
lotted to them in severalty from which they had come 
to understand the privileges of citizenship. They were 
in fact uncivilized Indians, generally, and they had 
never felt the strong hand of the power that should 
have corrected the misdoings of some of their people, 
particularly in the Meeker affair. They had become 
dissatisfied with their situation on the Uintah reser- 
vation in Utah, and simply had gone out as their an- 
cestors had been wont to do for untold centuries, to 
live as they liked and where they pleased. Distant hills 
are likely to look very green to the Indian until he has 
tested their hospitality, and these Utes were looking 
for hunting-grounds and green pastures. They had 
never been reconciled to their home in Utah, and their 
unrest had by no means been soothed by the processes 
of civilization which had resolved them into citizens 
and given them allotments. They were unwhipped, 
rather intractable, and disposed to remain uncon- 
scious of responsibilities that appertained to their sov- 
ereign rights as citizens. If they had any fixed idea of 
a destination when they left their reservation, it was 
probably Pine Ridge agency. South Dakota. 

My experience is that most Indians are impressed 
by the idea that their fellows at other agencies or re- 
servations are much better off than they themselves 
are; and, in spite of their supposed taciturnity, they 
are, as a people, much given to sociable visiting. It 
is possible that some of the older men among the 
wanderers, with remembrance of the Big Horn Moun- 
[ 374 ] 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

tains, had an idea of living by the chase in that coun- 
try. Whatever their original intention, they were wan- 
dering about over the grazing lands of the Wyoming 
ranchmen and offering a constant menace to the peace 
of mind of the settlers, though they committed no 
actual depredations. They were living off of their own 
stock and the game they could kill — for they were 
not at all restrained by the game laws of the state 
of Wyoming. They were sullen, too, and the people of 
the country were alarmed because of the possibility 
that the Utes might throw off all restraint and indulge 
their worst passions. 

By legislative proceedings, compelled by reasons of 
state policy or local conditions, the Utes had been 
made the beneficiaries of an allotment to which they 
were not treaty parties. Most of them had not gone 
far enough on the road to civilization to have an ade- 
quate knowledge of the fact that the government was 
proceeding in their ultimate interest in giving them 
lands in severalty. When the allotment was imposed 
on them by congressional action they were very largely 
disposed to disregard it, and it had been my duty to 
confer with them and bring them to a sense of what 
would be good for them under the circumstances. 
These diplomatic advances they had not always re- 
ceived in the best spirit, and it had been found prac- 
tically impossible to get a proper proportion of them 
to signify their acceptance of the terms of the allot- 
ment. The amount of land allotted to each of the In- 
dians had been cut down to an extent that they would 
have resented if they had not, in spirit at least, re- 
jected the entire proceeding. They were unwhipped 
and indisposed to take on the life of the white man 
[375] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

in a country that was not promising for agriculture 
or cattle-raising, naturally, but which was rich in 
potentialities when it could be brought under irriga- 
tion. 

My relations with them had been satisfactory per- 
sonally — at least as satisfactory as the relations of 
any white official appealing to them against their pre- 
judices could be; and when they left the reservation 
in midsummer, 1906, and went off looking for greener 
pastures, it was to be expected that I would be drawn 
into the case for the purpose of showing them the error 
of their ways — if the white settlers did not take the 
matter into their own hands and chastise them. And 
if the later settlers of the country that the Utes invaded 
with such beautiful disregard of changed conditions 
had been of the same sort as the original settlers in 
that country ; if they had been as ready to defend their 
rights with the strong hand as were the men who knew 
and had dealt with some of these Indians thirty years 
ago, there would have been little left for Indian diplo- 
macy. Under the circumstances, it was a case to be 
handled with some delicacy. 

The first official information the Washington author- 
ities had of the state of affairs — except an intima- 
tion from Indian Agent Hall that the White Rivers 
had left the reservation — was in the form of an invi- 
tation from the governor of Wyoming to call off their 
Indians. This looked simple enough to the governor 
and the people of that state. But the suggestion — 
which would no doubt have had the immediate effect 
of sending troops after the marauders had the Utes 
been agency Indians — put a perplexing problem up 
to the department. The wanderers were, in effect, 
[376] 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

citizens of the United States; they were engaged in 
no offense against the laws of the United States. They 
undoubtedly were trespassers in the state of Wyo- 
ming, and the obvious thing to do with them was to 
deal with them as other offenders under the state laws 
would be dealt with, arrest and punish them. This 
latter proposition was plain enough as a matter of 
law, but rather different in practice. Here were four 
hundred Indians, armed for hunting and possibly 
for something more than that. The civil and mili- 
tary forces of Wyoming could undoubtedly treat with 
the red people, but, it was evident, only at a very con- 
siderable cost in bloodshed. Besides, there was the 
question of what to do with them if they were captured. 
Wyoming did not want the job of keeping, in what 
would be royal style for a starving Indian, a whole 
band of starving Indians. On the other hand, the 
federal authorities, having set the Utes up as citizens, 
had some doubts about the federal right to interfere 
with those citizens. In the long run the problem was 
settled in a common-sense way, though there was not 
any very nice adjustment made of the responsibility of 
the Indian, the state, and the national government. 

I was in Washington on official business in the month 
of September, 1906, when the question how to deal 
with these wanderers came to a point where it must 
be disposed of. An urgent communication from the 
governor of Wyoming to the Indian Department 
brought matters to a head, and I received my orders 
from Acting Secretary of the Interior, Honorable 
Thomas Ryan, in the following terms, which I quote 
as indicating the broad range of the commission com- 
mitted to me. 

[377 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

"Department of the Interior, 
** United States Indian Service, 
" Washington, September 21, 1906. 

"James McLaughlin, Esq., 

"United States Indian Inspector, 
"Washington, D. C. 
"Sir: — 

"Upon receipt of this letter you will proceed at 
once to Casper, Wyoming, thence to such other points 
in Wyoming where the Uintah Ute Indians absent 
from their reservation may be found, and use every 
endeavor to induce them to return quietly to their 
reservation. Promptly report by wire the result of 
your negotiations, with such recommendations as you 
may think advisable, and wait further instructions. 
"Very respectfully, 

(Sd.) "Thos. Ryan, 
"Acting Secretary." 

That the department was much concerned in the 
matter is shown in an oflScial communication to the 
President of the same date, which I append, and which 
shows, in brief, the importance of the problem and the 
attitude of the Acting Secretary : — 

"Department of the Interior, 
" United States Indian Service, 
" Washington, September 21, 1906. 

" The President : — 

"I submit herewith a copy of a telegram from 
the Governor of Wyoming, dated August 25, 1906, 
stating that some three hundred Ute Indians were 
then camped along the Piatt River in that state, and 
that he feared serious trouble unless this Department 
would escort them out of Wyoming; also copy of a 
r 378 1 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

report of August 27, 1906, from the Commissioner 
of Indian Affairs, setting forth the efforts made by 
the United States Indian Agent in charge of the 
Uintah Utes to induce the Indians complained of to 
return to their homes, and stating that, these Indians 
being citizens of the United States, the case was one 
for local authorities rather than for this Department ; 
also copy of a letter transmitting this report of the 
Commissioner to the Governor of Wyoming; also 
copy of a communication from the Governor of Wyo- 
ming under date of the 17th instant, setting forth the 
serious aspect of the matter, and stating that neither 
the county nor the state authorities are able to cope 
with the situation, and urging the necessity of some 
prompt and appropriate action by this Department. 

" These Indians having received allotments of lands 
under the Act of February 8, 1887 (24 Statutes, 388), 
are citizens of the United States. It is a matter of 
legal interpretation whether the Act approved May 
8, 1906, amending the Act of 1887, so that citizen- 
ship is deferred until the issuance of final patents on 
the allotments, can be held to affect the status of these 
Indians given them prior to the passage of this said 
amendatory Act. 

"This Department is powerless in the premises, 
and entertains considerable doubt whether the troops 
of the United States may, as suggested by the Gover- 
nor of Wyoming, be used to arrest these Indians and 
return them to their homes in Utah. It is feared, how- 
ever, that action along this line is the only course that 
will avoid conflicts between the Indians and the resi- 
dents of Wyoming, resulting in bloodshed in the near 
future. 

[ 379 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

"I have just concluded a conference on this subject 
with Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Larrabee 
and Inspector McLaughlin, with result that I have 
ordered the latter to proceed immediately to the camp 
of these Indians in Wyoming and persuade them, if 
possible, to return to their homes. McLaughlin knows 
these Indians well and has heretofore been remark- 
ably successful in negotiating with them relative to 
matters of interest to the Government, to which he 
found them at first stubbornly opposed. I have much 
confidence that McLaughlin will be successful. In 
view, however, of his possible failure, I would respect- 
fully suggest that the matter be submitted to the At- 
torney General, for his opinion whether troops of the 
United States may be used to arrest and return these 
Ute Indians to their homes, and, if in his opinion it 
may be done, a suflScient force be detailed to accom- 
plish the purpose should it become necessary. 

"I have replied by wire to Governor Brooks' letter 
of the 17th instant, as follows : — 

"'Your letter seventeenth relative to Ute Indians 
received. As result of conference with Acting Com- 
missioner of Indian Affairs, Inspector McLaughlin 
has been ordered to proceed at once to Casper to con- 
fer with these Indians in the hope that he may be able 
to persuade them to return to their homes without the 
use of troops. Meantime the Department will to-day 
communicate all the facts to the President and recom- 
mend that troops be used if Inspector McLaughlin 
fails in his mission, if that can be done lawfully.' 
"Very respectfully, 

(Sgd.) "Thos. Ryan, 

"Acting Secretary," 
[ 380 J 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

I have found that it has been generally so very neces- 
sary to give the Indians plenty of time for considera- 
tion, that no time must be lost in getting the subject 
they are to consider before them, and I was at Cas- 
per, and, supposedly, within striking distance of the 
trail of the wanderers, on the 25th of September. I 
was there joined by a young White River Ute Indian, 
Henry Johnson, of the Uintah agency, eighteen years 
of age, as interpreter, and upon inquiry learned that 
the Indians had left Casper several days prior to our 
arrival, and when last heard of were on Sage Creek, 
about thirty-five miles northeast. 

In order to get within shorter driving distance of 
the people, I returned east to Douglas, Wyoming, and 
started out by livery conveyance with the interpreter 
and a person named Tracy, who was said to have 
sufiicient knowledge of the country to be an eflScient 
guide. I have hitherto fallen into the hands of 
guides whose sole stock in trade was a reputation for 
knowing the uncharted prairie, but this particular 
guide was a little bit less informed about the coun- 
try than I myself was — and I had not been in it 
before. 

There was no trail of the Indians, and it became a 
case of using my sense of what a wandering band 
might do under given circumstances — when the cir- 
cumstances were something in the dark. I found 
a sheep-herder's camp on Box Creek, twenty-eight 
miles north of Douglas, and, though I got no better 
acquainted with the possible abiding-place of the 
Utes, I put my guide into dry dock there and struck 
out for Dry Creek, thence over to the Dry Fork of the 
Cheyenne, and finally back to Douglas, after a trip of 
[381] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

over one hundred miles, during which I neither saw 
nor heard anything of my red friends. 

Upon returning to Douglas I picked up a rumor that 
the Indians were in the neighborhood of Fiddleback 
Ranch, seventy miles or so northeast of Douglas, and 
that they were thought to be heading for the Black 
Hills or the Pine Ridge agency. On this information 
I acted, and proceeded by train, by way of Crawford, 
Nebraska, to Edgemont, South Dakota, but found 
nothing like a certain trail. Acting still on the rumor 
I had heard, I proceeded to Newcastle, Wyoming, 
and there got some corroboration of the report of their 
being at the Fiddleback Ranch. 

October 2, I set out from Newcastle with a driver 
named C. D. Johnson, who was also a deputy game- 
warden — and it was the game laws of Wyoming that 
were more in danger than any of the other state enact- 
ments up to that time, from the Utes. At Fiddleback 
Ranch, I found the rumor of the presence of the 
Indians to have been well founded, but they had left 
there, traveling in a northwesterly direction, five days 
previous to my arrival. That night I arrived at Half 
Circle Bar Ranch after sundown, having traveled 
ninety miles in the two days since leaving Newcastle, 
and found plenty of signs of Indians in the vicinity, 
but could learn nothing definite as to where they then 
were. We remained over night at the Half Circle Bar 
Ranch, and left at daylight the following morning, 
traveling north until we struck the trail of the band 
about ten o'clock a. m., and followed it until about 
two o'clock that afternoon, when I found them in 
camp at a small lake at the head of Black Thunder 
Creek. 

[ 382 ] 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

They were a sullen lot, though the few I saw of 
them then treated me courteously enough. What I 
did not like was the fact that they wanted to avoid 
meeting me, saying that many of their young men 
were off hunting and looking for ponies that had 
strayed. I had met many of them twice before, and 
they were not personally offensive. They simply de- 
clined to go into council, offering the absence of their 
people as an excuse. They gave no evidence of offer- 
ing any sort of hospitality — and under the circum- 
stances it would not have been wise to suggest it. 
There was nothing for it but to urge our tired horses 
to the trail again, and I found a welcome and cheerful 
greeting and treatment from W. M. Baird and his 
wife, at "21" Ranch, about ten miles down Black 
Thunder Creek from the Indian camp, and the only 
habitation within twenty miles. 

I was compelled to admire the courage and good 
sense of Mr. and Mrs. Baird in staying by their prop- 
erty. Had they fled, they would possibly have suffered 
in their property at least. Securing from the ranchman 
a fresh team, I returned to the Indian camp the fol- 
lowing morning and experienced one of those days of 
which I have had a few in my life, when I felt my 
personal knowledge of and acquaintance with the In- 
dian might not be of much avail if they were pressed 
too far, or if the war-spirit was strong in the young 
men. 

I got them assembled in council, but it was hope- 
less from the first. They stood about, their very atti- 
tude proclaiming their indifference to any argument I 
might have to offer. When you can get an Indian to 
argue, it is possible to convince him, but he is very 
[ 383 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

like his white brother when he puts his back up and 
will not talk. When I had made my proposals the 
three leaders of the Utes, Soccioff, Red Cap, and 
Appah, made speeches in the order named, in which 
they derided the government and its invitation to 
return to their reservation. In reciting the reasons 
why they would not return, they naturally indulged in 
that Indian eloquence which has so often gone far to 
undo the argument of the white man. They sought to 
inflame their people with desire for the freedom they 
were then enjoying. They said that their reservation 
had been opened to the whites, and that the govern- 
ment was quite free to give their allotments to whites 
as the rest of the reservation had been given to them. 
As for the speakers and their people, they did not be- 
long to the government and would have nothing to do 
with it ; Washington people had no claim on them and 
they had nothing to ask for. 

Each one closed with the declaration that he would 
die rather than return to Utah, and Soccioff was inde- 
pendent and defiant to. the point of more than hint- 
ing at his willingness to make trouble. The council 
closed without any advantage to the government, ex- 
cept that I had been able to convey to the wavering 
ones an idea of the long, hard winter that was before 
them if they stayed out, and the certainty that the 
government would do nothing for them while they 
were recalcitrant. 

When the council was over, I concluded to proceed 
in my own way — for I have generally found it better 
to work with the Indian as an individual than when 
he is before his people. It was taking a chance, of 
course, and there was always a prospect that I would 
[ 384 ] 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

be ordered out of camp or get shot in my back from 
the gun of some truculent young man. I was handi- 
capped by a want of knowledge of the Ute language — 
my interpreter being a mere boy and being scared to 
a point where he was worse than useless. Some of the 
men spoke a little Sioux, and in this tongue, the sign- 
language, and pigeon-English I brought around that 
afternoon and the following day sixty-one individuals 
to my way of thinking, and got them out of the main 
camp as soon as possible after volunteering to return 
to their home reservation. 

As the men indicated their willingness to return 
with me to the reservation, I moved them and their 
belongings about ten miles down the Black Thunder 
Creek, where they would be removed from the influ- 
ence of the main party ; but when I had gotten to the 
end of my persuasive powers and rounded them up 
for the start for Newcastle, on the morning of October 
7, fifteen had vanished during the night and I was 
compelled to remain content. And though I brought 
off only about one eighth of the entire party, it was 
an achievement to which I look back with some pride 
as being the most effective demonstration of the pos- 
sibilities of Indian diplomacy that I have been able to 
exercise — under such forbidding circumstances. 

The forty-six were transported to the Uintah reser- 
vation, where they remain and have entered into the 
spirit of the new conditions. The federal authorities 
were eventually moved to put a stop to the wanderings 
of the rest of the band. 

From what I knew of their sullenness together with 
their attitude toward officials of the government, also 
of their being well armed and their evident determina- 
[ 385 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

tion to fight to the last man rather than return to Uin- 
tah, I was fearful of results should anly a small de- 
tachment of troops be sent after them, and therefore 
suggested that a force suflSciently strong numerically 
to overawe them be sent, if at all, and was pleased to 
learn that eight troops of the Tenth Cavalry and eight 
of the Sixth Cavalry had started out to put a stop 
to their wanderings. The Indians were overtaken by 
the troops on the Powder River in Montana, just 
across the Wyoming line, where, after several days of 
uncertain waiting as to the outcome, and through the 
skillful diplomacy of Captain Carter P. Johnson, 
U. S. A., then of the Tenth Cavalry, now of the Second 
Cavalry, the Indians were induced to go to Fort 
Meade, South Dakota, for the winter, with the express 
understanding, however, that a delegation of their 
leading men be taken to Washington to make known 
their grievances. This compact was faithfully carried 
out, and the delegation selected by the Indians visited 
the seat of government during the month of January, 
1907, accompanied by Captain Johnson. 

In the conference held with this delegation at Wash- 
ington, the Indians declined to entertain any pro- 
position for their return to Uintah ; and it being fully 
believed by the oflScers of the command operating 
against them that they would fight sooner than return 
thereto, it was humanely determined that they be sent 
temporarily to the Cheyenne River reservation. South 
Dakota, which they consented to and where they re- 
mained about a year. 

I visited them at their camp on the Moreau River, 
in the western part of the Cheyenne River reservation, 
during the month of August, 1907, and found them 
[ 386 ] 



THE UNWHIPPED UTES 

less sullen but dissatisfied. In the autumn of 1907, 
the entire Sixth Regiment of cavalry was sent out to 
their camp to quell a disturbance growing out of their 
refusal to place their children in school, and after re- 
maining about a year on the Cheyenne River reser- 
vation, South Dakota, they were prevailed upon to 
return to their home reservation at White Rocks, 
Utah, where they now are, but doubtless still discon- 
tented. 
As I said before, they are unwhipped Indians. 



CHAPTER XXI 
GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

THE Treasury of the United States holds some- 
thing like thirty-six million dollars in funds be- 
longing to the Indians. {The fund, as it stands, 
might be described as an endowment for the creation 
of paupers and the perpetuation of the present state 
of dependence among the people to whose credit it 
stands^; In addition to this fund, the government 
holds for the Indians a vast amount in landed pro- 
perty, the title to a great deal of which property will 
pass to the Indian in twenty-five years after he ac- 
cepts an allotment. The issuance of the patent in 
fee may be expedited by any Indian who thinks well 
enough of his heirs to betake himself to the happy 
hunting-grounds; for in that event, the land may be 
sold for the benefit of the decedent's family. It is quite 
impossible to value the land even approximately, but 
it is worth many millions of dollars. ' And, resting as 
he does under the weight of this burden of w ealth, get- 
ting enough of it from time to time to keep the life in 
his body and prevent him from exerting himself to any 
great extent on his own behalf, the American Indian 
is fated to die in a state of unthrift and indigence, a 
sort of half-starved ward in chancery. It appears to me 
that it is the duty of the government to make some 
provision presently for the emancipation of these un- 
happy victims, to deliver them from the evils that guar- 
antee a future of ungentle paupery, by giving to the 
[ 38S ] 



GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

Indian his portion and turning him adrift to work out 
his own salvation. 

The Indian and his condition is not so important 
a matter to the majority of the people of the United 
States as the smashing of the trusts and the reforma- 
tion of the "system"; but no question that affects the 
moral and physical salvation of over a quarter of a 
million human beings living in this country, can be 
lacking in importance to the rest of the people; and 
this problem, in which is involved the future of the 
Indian and the disposition of the wealth that a pater- 
nal government has sequestered for his benefit, is of 
imminent and practical interest to the people of the 
west, in particular, and to all the people of the country, 
in general. Moreover, the Indian problem is involved 
in a condition created by and for the benefit of the 
American people. Leaning as he does on a govern- 
mental prop that is unstable, the Indian to-day calmly 
asks : "What are you going to do about it .^ " And the 
question must be answered, not by the bookmen, nor 
by the missionary societies, but by the practical men 
who are to-day engaged in giving to the adminis- 
tration of governmental affairs the best thought and 
the most practical intelligence ever placed at the dis- 
posal of the people of the republic. 

The solution of the Indian question is not contained 
in the breech-loading rifle, as was fondly imagined by 
the military economist of an earlier day. In the re- 
formation of the imagination which gave birth to this 
idea, much blood was spilled and much rich territory 
wrested from the Indians, but I do not know that, 
on the whole, the Indian was not better off when we 
treated him as an enemy than he is now that we have 
[ 389 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

an opportunity to practice on him the mistaken poli- 
cies evolved by his quondam friends. In the sixties, 
when the best of the Indians — the best raw material, 
I mean — roamed the prairies of the west and inter- 
posed a deadly objection to the white man who was 
seeking to expand his sphere of influence, the policy 
of the white man, jumping with his interest, was for 
the application of force in the removal of that obsta- 
cle. 1 do not know that any other policy would have 
been equally effective in the removal of the Indian 
stumbling-block to the white man's car of progress. 
I do know that much bad blood was engendered and 
many valuable lives sacrificed, and that these lives 
might have been saved if the Indian had been treated 
with honesty, and the rights he was ready to maintain 
with the brand and tomahawk made the subject of 
honest bargaining. But it became the proper thing to 
dally with the savage Indian by misjudging his fight- 
ing capacity, sending insufficient forces against him, 
in the fatuous idea that he might be cowed by a show 
of military pomp, then fighting him in force and sub- 
duing him to the point of making him glad to accept 
a treaty. The treaty being made, white men broke 
it. The white men broke all the treaties. General 
Sherman, who did not love the Indian overmuch, de- 
clared that all the Indian wars were chargeable to the 
white men and their bad faith. Other men — not the 
faddists who exploit the Indian for advertising pur- 
poses — agreed with Sherman, and I know nothing 
to support a contention that the Indian was treacher- 
ous, and capable of breaking faith w hen he had made 
a fair engagement. For many years the Indian had 
been treated as an enemy, or tolerated under condi- 
[ 390 ] 



\ \ 

GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

tions degrading to the individual and disgraceful to 
the people responsible, until, in his first inaugural, 
General Grant proclaimed the peace policy of deal- 
ing with the aboriginal peoples. 

Unfortunately, the country was not ready for the 
application of the peace policy. The Indians held, 
under the then newly made treaties, much valuable 
territory that the white man needed. For instance, a 
treaty made with the trans-Missouri Sioux in 1868 
gave those people the territory included in what was 
known as the Great Sioux reservation. In this treaty 
were included the adjacent lands, held under the 
agreement to be ceded lands, but free to the Indian 
for purposes of the chase. Almost immediately after 
the making of the treaty, gold was discovered in 
the Black Hills and white men invaded the Indian 
territory. There is no reason for believing that the 
Indians would not have been glad to treat for the 
cession of the hills for a proper remuneration, — a 
trifling remuneration, considering their value. But 
the whites took with the strong arm what they had 
solemnly covenanted to the Indians. This action was 
totally and utterly unjustifiable, and wars undertaken 
with a view to driving the Sioux out of the territory 
that had been so positively assigned them, were as 
savagely wrongful as any of the Indian depredations. 
The climax of these wars in 1876, when Custer and 
his men were killed in battle, — the Little Big Horn 
affair was not a massacre, — brought about the mak- 
ing of a further treaty, by which the Sioux gave up 
their rights in the Black Hills, for literally a mess of 
pottage, the consideration being chiefly subsistence. 
Thirteen years later, their reservation was again cut 
[391 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

down, but this time there was a fair adjustment of 
the property rights of the Indians, and the way was 
opened to the ultimate enfranchisement of the people. 
I cite these things to show, by the example of the Sioux, 
that the whites have forced upon the Indians the con- 
ditions under which they now exist. I do not justify 
the Indian for his depredations in the long ago, and 
it is rather late to try the white men who seized the 
Indian's lands, — bound to him by treaty, — but it is 
worth while showing that the Indian did not elect to 
become the pauper he is, that he was passive in the 
making of treaties which have resulted in giving him 
an inheritance that serves to delude him with the 
prospect of future wealth and the certainty of a pre- 
sent sufficiency, so far as his absolute needs are con- 
cerned. 

Thirty years ago, practically, the Indian ceased to 
be part of a warlike institution to be coped with by 
force, and has been made the object of a great deal 
of experiment, within certain limitations, though the 
limitations have been changed frequently, to conform 
to the requirements of the time and the ideas of the 
experimentalists. During this period the Indian has 
run the gauntlet of those evils that beset the path of 
the individual of simple and direct mind, suddenly 
constrained to a new order of things, physical, men- 
tal, and moral. Thirty years ago the great body of 
the Indians who had found strength to stand up 
against the white man long after their less enduring 
relatives in the older settlements had succumbed, were 
practically savages standing at the threshold of civili- 
zation. I am frank to say that the same body of In- 
dians to-day, measured by the standards of civiliza- 
[ 392 ] 



GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

tion, are not as desirable a class of people as they 
were when they were put into the way of becoming 
as the white man. They have degenerated physically, 
and I am not sure that they have advanced intellect- 
ually, for the standards of intellect have changed 
with them, or been changed for them. 

As for the reasons for their degeneration: in his 
primitive state the Indian was a nomad, ranging over 
a wide tract of country, living by the chase altogether, 
except in a few isolated cases, taking a great deal of 
physical exercise incidental to his avocation as a 
hunter, living in the open air, eating flesh, and cloth- 
ing himself according to his means and the season. 
The children were inured to what the white man w^ould 
consider killing hardships ; the w^omen worked as hard 
as the men. The Indian in his native state never knew 
comfort in the winter, according to our notion. But 
he remained healthy and survived comparative hard- 
ship, because it w^as his natural condition. His wants 
were as simple as his physical and mental organiza- 
tion. He lived for the day and was content. 

We took away from him his hunting-grounds and 
put him on a reservation. This reservation was gen- 
erally located in a country unavailable for the use of 
the white man of the early day. It was not poor land, 
except by comparison with the richer territory sur- 
rounding it, and it was held to be good enough for the 
Indian. Contract hunters working for corporations, 
independent of Indian interference, killed the buffalo, 
— one of the crimes of the last generation, — and the 
Indian sat down on his reservation after he had killed 
the last edible animal within its boundaries, and waited 
for the government to metamorphose him into a white 
[ 393 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

man. By way of curing him of his nomadic habits, 
he was given a fixed habitation and coerced into liv- 
ing in a house built by his own hands. The day the 
Indian moved out of his airy tepee into the closed-up 
house in which no provision was made for ventilation 
of any sort, he reduced his chance of surviving by a 
considerable percentage. When he was compelled 
to change his diet to conform to that of the whites, 
to eat food improperly cooked by women who knew 
nothing of cookery, giving up his substantial meat 
food and living on materials for which he was unfitted 
by a thousand years of training, he further lowered 
his chances of sustaining life. The Indian was igno- 
rant of the laws of sanitation, but when he lived in 
the open, he provided against bad sanitary conditions 
instinctively; he moved his camp so often that the 
matter of sanitation never had to be considered. In 
his new house, he lived amidst filth because he was 
ignorant that it was filth. He never had a cold and 
his lungs were sound, in the old days. When he moved 
into a house from which all fresh air was excluded, he 
wore the same clothing indoors as in the open — as he 
had always been used to do. He became the prey of 
colds and fevers; bad sanitary conditions brought 
their train of disorders, and his blood was impover- 
ished, because he was badly nourished by his new 
diet. 

Under the circumstances, it is not to be wondered 
at that he died — the wonder is that any of the In- 
dians, compelled to the changed way of living, sur- 
vived. Impoverished blood brought on scrofula. It 
is altogether a mistake to charge the prevalence of 
this evil to the vices of the Indian. It has been a 
[ 394 ] 



GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

dreadful scourge, and the most distressing sign of the 
reservation Indian to-day is the vast number of in- 
dividuals who show, in their scarred necks, the im- 
prints of this awful disease, which invariably attacks, 
among these people, the glands of the neck. Pulmo- 
nary disorders followed close on colds that were not 
treated at all, and tuberculosis in its varied forms be- 
set the wretched people. They were quite hopeless 
in the presence of epidemic disorders. 

With all these unknown and unnamed ills beating 
them into the earth, the Indians sat, supine, waiting 
for the coming of that day in which they would live 
and thrive as the white man lived and throve. They 
had been told that they would be as white men if they 
obeyed the agents of the Great Father. They had not 
much instinctive disposition to exertion. Manual 
labor had never entered into the Indian's scheme of 
existence, and the example of the white man did not 
impress him much. He came to know that just before 
he reached the fatal point in the process of starvation, 
the government would come to his rescue, and, if he 
was not content, he was passive under conditions he 
could neither understand nor cope with. His children 
died of disorders he had never heard of, and his 
parents died in the long winter nights. He was a 
probationer in the school of civilization, and he was 
having a hard time of it. He was by turns browbeaten 
and cajoled, bribed and punished, threatened and 
rewarded, and all of the worst elements in his char- 
acter developed for want of firm, consistent, and hon- 
est treatment. Gradually the cunning that had been 
his in woodcraft and fighting changed in form, and 
he came to know that he could, by the exercise of 
[ 395 ] 



/ MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

cunning (^f another sort, get things from the white 
man. His simplicity and directness of character gave 
way to his needs, and he met bargain-hunting whites 
as a bargainer. He made better terms for the cession 
of his unproductive lands, and the government be- 
came his banker for the enormous amount of wealth 
that is his curse to-day, — a veritable mine from which 
he may take only enough to keep body and soul to- 
gether while loafing between payments, a handicap 
in the development of the country to which the gov- 
ernment holds a trust-title for him. 

In a recent official tour of duty, I spent a couple of 
months among a band of Indians located in South 
Dakota, who have been settled in their present loca- 
tion for upward of thirty-five years. When the band 
was first formally located, it consisted of about fifteen 
hundred souls. For over twenty years the people lived 
by their own resources. Occasionally it was neces- 
sary to assist them, but they had no invested wealth, 
no fund upon which to draw, no income from leased 
lands. They had a bad time at first, there is no doubt 
of that, but they survived it and I know that they had 
become thrifty to a certain extent. They had no debts, 
for they owned no capital and had no expectations. 
There was a natural decrease in the numbers owing 
to infant mortality and a high death-rate, the result 
of changed conditions, but they grew in total strength, 
by reason of accessions of their own people from other 
parts of the country. They had become practically 
self-supporting, living by their herds, by trapping, 
and by the cultivation of small tracts of land. In 
twenty years they had grown to their changed condi- 
tion and the birth-rate equaled the death-rate. My 
[ 396 ] 



GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

experience goes to show that this period , generally 
carries them past the line of decrease and brings them 
to where they hold their own against death and dis- 
ease. 

In the process of civilization, they had arrived at 
a stage of their progress when, as a part of the usual 
policy, they were given their lands in severalty. To 
each individual was allotted one hundred and sixty 
acres of land, the title to which was to be held in trust 
by the government for twenty-five years and then 
patented in fee to the allottee. The allotted lands 
were to be free of taxes during the trust period. The 
balance of the reservation was thrown open to settle- 
ment and sale under the laws, and the moneys ob- 
tained by the sale of these lands were to be held in 
trust by the government, and five per cent per annum 
interest to be paid. This plan, which is that generally 
followed, had all the evidences of a beneficent and 
well-digested scheme. It assured each Indian a farm 
in a country that is fertile to a degree, where crops 
fail but infrequently, and where the white man, who 
has no expectations from government, makes a satis- 
factory income for a family on a quarter section of 
land. The land that was thrown open to settlement 
was greedily seized upon, and there was at once accu- 
mulated a large fund to the credit of the Indians. And 
that fund was the undoing of them. 

The interest on the fund has been devoted very 
largely to the maintenance of a boarding-school for 
Indians, and out of the capital fund, the Indians have 
been paid substantial sums from time to time. Al- 
together, in the fifteen years that have elapsed since 
the first payment, the Indians have received about 
[ 397 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

nine hundred dollars per capita in disbursements out 
of the fund created by the sale of the lands taken by 
settlers in the reservation. In addition to this, they 
have received a considerable income in the form of 
moneys from leased lands and from other sources. As 
the families are comparatively large, the income of 
each household has been quite suflBcient to keep the 
people from want, and even to make them comfort- 
able, if it was not for their expensive and improvident 
habits. 

The total of Indians on the reservation has increased 
until they now number about nineteen hundred souls, 
part of the recent increase being natural, the Indians 
having passed the danger-mark attained by the lower- 
ing of their physical condition. There has also been a 
considerable gain through the increase in the number 
of mixed marriages. Altogether this body of Indians 
might be taken as fairly showing the result of the 
policy of holding the Indian in wardship and making 
him heir to wealth that is being gradually distributed. 

And I have no hesitancy in saying that the condi- 
tion of these Indians to-day is not as hopeful as it was 
eighteen years ago, when they had no wealth in ex- 
pectancy and no payments to depend on. Their ad- 
vancement has been greatly retarded by the system 
under which they live. They lack the manly quali- 
ties that distinguished them generally fifteen or twenty 
years ago; they have no self-dependence; they lean 
upon the government or the agent in all their affairs ; 
they are in debt. They squander the money that is 
given them — I am speaking of the people generally, 
for there are a few notable exceptions to this rule. The 
younger people have little pride of ancestry and no 
[ 398 ] 



GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

care for the future. The older people have neither 
ambition nor hope — beyond the next payment. They 
are utterly listless of the passing of time, except as 
it brings a payment nearer, and are much given to 
the cheaper amusements of the whites and the inane 
dances of their ancestors. Fifteen years of annuity- 
drawing has made of a people that was struggling 
to the sjurface by personal effort, a set of paupers in 
chancery.; I do not mean that they beg, for they do 
not. They are rather purse-proud in the knowledge 
that the government holds for them something like 
seven hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, but 
they are just as certainly indigents to-day as though 
they were kept in almshouses. Ten years more of 
annuity-drawing and their case will be utterly hope- 
less. They will be stripped of their farms, as soon as 
they are patented, by their more thrifty neighbors. 
Then, perhaps, they will go to work in order to eat. 
They are Indians at heart, with some of the cheap 
vices of the white man and all of the helplessness of 
the naturally indigent; they have not advanced intel- 
lectually along any line that will do them good; the 
children and the younger people speak English, but 
their shyness keeps them to thinking and talking 
among themselves in Sioux, and' they would be better 
off, so far as the future is concerned, if they stood as 
blanketed Indians on the virgin prairieJ 

I instance this band as a sample of what has been 
accomplished by governmental administration of In- 
dian funds. They prove incontrovertibly the demoral- 
izing effect of the present system, and they stand as a 
fair sample of people treated as they have been. 

Fortunately, not all of the Indians have money in 
[ 399 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

the treasury upon which to draw. I say " fortunately," 
for the Indian who has nothing at all, either at present 
or in expectancy, is much better off than these, and 
infinitely better material upon which to work. These 
people of whom I have been speaking are Sioux, and 
nominally classed as being far in advance of their 
relatives, the Teton Sioux of the trans-Missouri 
country. As a matter of fact, the Indians of the 
trans-Missouri reservations, who have practically no 
income save that which is produced by leasing their 
lands for grazing purposes, or what they earn by 
labor, are infinitely better off than these civilized and 
wealthy cousins of theirs. The Teton Sioux is better 
physically and morally, and of stronger mentality, 
than the annuitant. He has been compelled to exert 
himself since he was driven out of his hunting-grounds, 
and he has had rather better health than some of his 
compeers, for that reason. He has passed through 
the transitory stage involved in the change of his 
manner of life, and he is recovering from the anaemic 
condition to which he was reduced by the change from 
the tepee to the log house, from fresh meat to cereal 
foods. For seven years he has had no government 
assistance, except for the maintenance of schools and 
rations for the aged and indigent, and he is now 
taking his land in severalty. The demoralization will 
come if the present system obtains. And it is out- 
rageous to contemplate the pauperization of a people 
that gave birth to such men as John Grass and Gall. 
There are not lacking examples showing that the 
Indian can subsist himself in independence, when 
freed from the hot-house forcing of civilized growth. 
The Navajos, the most populous of the tribes with 
[ 400 ] 



GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

the possible exception of the Sioux, numbering close 
to twenty-five thousand, live at peace and in Indian 
comfort — undisturbed because they inhabit a coun- 
try totally unfit for the habitation of the white man — 
in Arizona. They receive no government aid. They 
are men, they live in the open air generally, and they 
require very little clothing. They have not succumbed 
to the missionaries, are generally pagans, and they 
have very few scholars — according to the standards 
of the schools. They live in a country that is rich in 
nothing but the cactus and sand, and they live on their 
herds and flocks, supplementing their income by the 
manufacture of what are considered the finest blan- 
kets in the world. I am very sanguine of the Navajo 
working out his own salvation. He will be left alone, 
for no man wants his land and the processes of civili- 
zation will affect him gradually and by absorption. 

Between the uncounted Navajo and the allotment 
Indian of South Dakota, there is a very great dis- 
tance, and the state of the people who dwell amidst 
the two is generally more or less hopeful, according 
to the condition of the tribes or bands when they en- 
tered into the enjoyment of wealth. The Osages are 
enormously wealthy, having a fund of above eight 
million dollars with an annual income of more than 
four hundred thousand dollars. I know of no sharper 
commentary on the effect of wealth upon the Indian 
than the fact stated in the 1904 report of the Commis- 
sioner of Indian Affairs, showing that among this tribe 
but ten persons were engaged in labor in civilized pur- 
suits. 

I would not argue that the economic and social 
condition of the Indian is satisfactory in the inverse 
[401 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

ratio to his wealth; but it appears certain to me that 
the Indian who attained to the right to draw a dole 
from the government before he had developed up to 
the state of being able to get a living for himself, is 
laboring under a serious handicap, and is at a stand- 
still or retrograding. 

I have no figures at hand showing the amount of 
money held in trust in the treasury and belonging to 
the Indians, later than October 31, 1906. The annual 
report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1906 
showed the amount to be $36,352,950.85, drawing an 
annual interest of $1,788,237.23. This may have been 
slightly reduced, and it may have been increased, but 
the sum now in trust is certainly in excess of thirty- 
six million dollars. Upon this enormous total, the 
government is paying interest at the rate of five per 
cent, except in a few instances, in which the rate is 
four per cent. Among the tribes and bands having the 
largest interest in this fund, the Osages stand at the 
head with $8,493,570.07 to their credit; other rich In- 
dians are the united bands interested in the Apache, 
Kiowa, and Comanche fund, $1,500,600.00 ; Cheyenne 
and Arapahoe in Oklahoma, $1,000,000.00; Chero- 
kee, $1,542,780.77; Creek, $2,472,930.95; Chickasaw, 
$693,061.79; Chippewa, in Minnesota, $4,096,203.92; 
Menominee of Wisconsin, $2,268,330.86 ; Sac and Fox 
of the Mississippi, $1,252,054.41; Sac and Fox of 
the Missouri, $100,400.00; Seminole, $2,070,000.00; 
Sioux of the former Great Sioux reservation, $2,955,- 
678.40 ; Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux, $785,454.62 ; Yank- 
ton Sioux, $480,008.00 ; Crow Creek Sioux, $89,454.73 ; 
Ute, $1,750,000.00; Winnebago, $883,249.50; Oma- 
ha, $373,136.52; Blackfeet, $275,909.50; Klamath, 
[ 402 ] 



GIVE THE RED MAN HIS PORTION 

$350,000.00; Otoe and Missouria, $505,147.53; Paw- 
nee, $400,001.15; Pottawatomie, $414,158.77, and 
Umatilla, $306,037.63; together with the respective 
amounts of various other tribes, aggregating $1,386, 
236.65. 

^ These immense holdings are being doled out to the 
Indians by a pauperizing system in sums inadequate 
to their needs, yet sufficient to give the annuitants the 
sense of being provided for. I am not sure but that 
the average white man, if assured of a sufficient in- 
come to scratch along on, would not proceed to be- 
come an Indian after his fashion. These people, who 
are but a step removed from the simplicity of savagery 
and have an instinctive dislike to any sort of exertion 
in the form of labor, take very enthusiastically to a 
system that permits them to live in Indian ease. 
/ This is the problem that confronts the white man : 
How is the Indian to be saved from himself and his 
riches } 

To me the question admits of but one answer. Give 
the people the money they have coming; give it to 
them as soon as possible. \ So soon as the proper official 
declares that an Indian is competent to administer his 
own affairs, ; let that Indian have his portion of the 
fund, also a patent in fee for his allotment, and let him 
shift for himself. This procedure would relieve the 
government of the care of these funds and build up 
manhood and individual self-reliance, which can never 
be realized under the present doling-out proces^ Do 
away with the leading-strings and check-reins by 
which the Indian is now so handicapped, and he will 
immediately feel the necessity for demonstrating his 
capacity to manage his own estate. By this means 
[ 403 ] 



MY FRIEND THE INDIAN 

only can the Indian be saved from chronic indigence 
and ultimate and absolute paupery; and I am suflS- 
ciently well acquainted with Indian nature to venture 
the prophecy that a large majority of those under fifty 
years of age will develop the capacity to hustle for 
themselves exactly in the proportion that their needs 
press them. Take away his annuity by letting him 
handle the principal, and the Indian will be given a 
start on the road to complete civilization and inde- 
pendence, that will land him at the desired goalj in 
nine ca«es out of ten. ^ 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abercrombie, Fort, 14. 

Agard, Henry, 115, 246-248. 

Agard, Mrs. Henry, and her coffin, 

246-248. 
Agencies, number of Indians at, greatly 

increased between 1868 and 1871, 7. 
Agents, Indian, functions and influence 

of, 67. 
Alden, E. H., 255, 256. 
American Horse, 279, 307. 
Apaches, 5, 265. 
Appah, 384. 
Appearing Day, beloved of Spotted 

Tail, 71-73. 
Applegate, Captain Jesse, 317, 330. 
Applegate, Maj. Oliver C, 317, 330. 
Arapahoes, 18, 130, 265, 296-299. 
Arickarees, 24, 250. 
Arrow V^oman, 241-244. 
Arthur, Rev. Mark (Nez Perce), 365. 
Assiniboines, 24. 
Atkinson, Andy, 13. 
Auger, General, 265. 

Bacon, Lieutenant, 359. 

"Bad men," in border towns, 18. 

Baird, W. M., 383. 

Baird, Mrs. W. M., 383. 

Barber, M., Ass't Adjutant-Gen., 214. 

"Bear Coat" (General Miles), 177. 

Bear Face, 287, 288. 

Bear Paw Mountains, scene of Chief 

Joseph's last fight, 362 scqq., 367. 
Bear's Cap, 150. 
Bell, Gen. James M., 43. 
Belt, R. v., Acting Comm'r of Indian 

Affairs, 200, 201, 209, 211, 212. 
Bent, William, 368. 
Benteen, Captain, 118, 129, 130; at the 



Little Big Horn, 143, 145, 155, 160; 
I 360. 

Berthold, Fort, 255, 257, 258. 
Big Foot, 197, 213. 
Big Head, misnamed, 233; 284, 285, 

286, 288. 
Big Hole Valley, 357, 358. 
Big Road, 134, 152; misnamed, 234. 
Big Stone Lake, 10. 
Billy Squash. See Wamnuha. 
Bismarck, No. Dakota, 14 
Bison. See Buffalo. 
Black Bird, 192, 197, 
Black Bull, 115. 
Black Hills, privilege of mining in, 

cause of Indian War of 1876, 124; 

government expedition to, in 1874, 

124; 268, 269, 271. 
Black Jim, 333, 343. 
Black Moon, 134, 150. 
Blackfeet, 26, 99, 107, 116 ; at the Little 

Big Horn, 136, 138, 152; 266. 
Bogus Charlie, 318, 332, 333, 342, 343. 
Border towns on western frontier in 

1871, 18. 
Boston Charley, 333, 342, 343. 
Bouyer, "Mitch," 128. 
Boyle, Hugh, 303-306. 
Brave Bear, murderer of the De 

Lormes, 40-46, 49; escape of, 50; 

further crimes of, 51 ; executed, 52. 
Brook, General, 213. 
Brown, Maj. Hugh G., 282. 
Brown Elk, 57. 
Brule Sioux, 25, 26, 99; at the Little 

Big Horn, 136, 149, 152; 266; agree- 
ment made with, by author, 307-309. 
Buffalo, great herds of, in Devils Lake 

agency, 9; migrations of, 10; hun- 



[407 ] 



INDEX 



dreds of, killed by Sioux hunting- 
party, 97 seqq. 

"Buffalo Bill." See Cody. 

Buffalo hunt, ceremonial of, 102 seqq. 

Buford, Fort, 14, 92, 182. 

Bull Ghost, 203. 

Bull Head, Indian policeman, 115, 204, 
209, 215, 216; letter of author to, 
217; proceeds to arrest Sitting Bull, 
218-221; death of, 221; burial of, 
with military honors, 222; 287. 

Burk, Steve, 101. 

Butler, Sergeant, 153. 

Cabanisse, Dr., 342. 
Cadotte, Nick, 284. 
Calhoun, Lieutenant, 151. 
Cameron, Angus, U. S. Senator, 272. 
Canby, Gen. E. R. S., 318, 325, 326, 

333 ; murder of, 334. 
Cannon-Bail River, 102. 
Carignan, John M., 216. 
Catch-the-Bear, 220, 221, 

Cavanaugh, , 43. 

Cedar Creek, 101, 102. 
Chapin, A. R., 222. 
Chappelle, Father, 278. 
Charging Thunder, 100. 
Chaska, name commonly given to first- 
born son among the Sioux, 226. 
Chatka, Lieutenant, Indian policeman, 

ejects Kicking Bear from Standing 

Rock reservation, 191. 
Cheyennes, 5, 18, 125, 130; at the 

Little Big Horn, 137,. 148, 152; 265; 

agreement concluded with, by author, 

302 seqq. 
Chilcat family, 312. 
Chippewas (Red Lake), 314. 
Circling Bear, 130, 192, 197. 
Circling Hawk, 192, 197. 
Cleveland, Grover, Pres. of U. S., 280, 

290, 291. 
Cleveland, Rev. William J., 274. 
Cody, Col. W. F., 209, 210, 211. 
Comanches, 5, 18, 265. 



Commission of 1867, to treat with In- 
dians, report of, 265; treaties con- 
cluded by, with various Sioux tribes, 
266. 

Commission of 1876, treaty concluded 
by, after the Little Big Horn cam- 
paign, 270. 

Commission of 1882, failure of, 271, 
272. 

Commission of Senators (1883), im- 
portant work, and report of, 272, 273. 

Commission of 1888, 273; proposed 
agreement of, with Sioux tribes, 274, 
275 ; negotiations of, in Washington, 
with Indian delegation, 276 seqq. 

Commission of 1889, 280; agreement 
proposed by, and its ratification, 
281-287. 

Cook, Lieutenant, Custer's adjutant, 
143, 152. 

Cooper, James A., 304. 

"Counting the coup," 181. 

Cow Head, 69. 

Craigie, General, 283. 

Cramsie, John W., 291. 

Cranston, Lieutenant, 340. 

Crazy Horse, 119, 121, 122, 123, 125, 
133, 137, 148, 152, 269. 

Crazy Walking, Indian policeman, 100, 
103, 104, 115; sent to arrest Kicking 
Bear, 191 ; origin of name of, 234. 

Crook, Gen. George, 121, 125, 126. 
132, 268, 280, 282, 283; the "pony- 
and-grub man," 294. 

Crow, 150. 

Crow Creek, 54. 

Crow Dog, 73, 74, 197. 

Crow Foot, 219, 220. 

Crow King, 34, 35 ; and Red Bird, 77 
seqq.; and the Sun-dance, 79, 80; 
wounded in battle with Crows, 81; 
abandoned by his people, 81; self- 
debasement of, 83, 84 ; abandoned by 
Red Bird, 84 ; and the medicine men, 
85 seqq.; "puts the tribe of quacks 
out of business," 88-90; reluctance 



[408] 



INDEX 



of, to send his daughter to school, 91, 
92 ; becomes advocate of white man's 
medicine, 94-96; 99, 100, 105, 107, 
119, 122; at the Little Big Horn, 133, 
134, 150; and Sitting Bull, 182. 

Crow King, Mrs. See Red Bird. 

Crow's Breast, 258. 

Crow's Ghost, 110. 

Crows, 18, 24, 81, 128, 130, 181, 250. 

Curly-Headed Doctor, 325, 326, 327, 
331, 332. 

Custer, Boston, 152. 

Custer, Gen. George A., 117, 118; 
character and antecedents of, 119, 
120; out of favor with President 
Grant, in 1876, 120; effect of presi- 
dential disfavor in curtailing author- 
ity of, in campaign of 1876, 121, 126; 
sets out from camp on the Rosebud, 
June 22, 126 ; misapprehension of, as 
to Indian force, 127; 137, 138, 143; 
his march against the Indian village, 
144 seqq. ; attacked by Indians under 
Gall, 149, 150; retreat and death of, 
150 seqq.; his body unmutilated, 
155. 

Custer, Capt. Tom, 151, 152. 

Cut Heads, 12, 17; at Devils Lake, 22, 
23 ; origin of name of, 25 ; and Brave 
Bear, 42 seqq. ; 53, 54, 254, 255, 256. 

Dakotas, properly the name of the 
Sioux, 27. 

Davis, Gen Jefferson C, 341. 

Dawes, Henry L., U. S. Senator, 272. 

Dawes Committee, 272, 273. 

Deeble, H. M., 222. 

De Lormes, murder of the, by Brave 
Bear and The Only One, 41 seqq. 

Devils Lake, 9, 10; Red River half- 
breeds at, 10 ; reservation estabhshed 
on, 12. 

Devils Lake agency, 9, 14, 15; condi- 
tions at, under the treaty of 1868, 22, 
23; description of life at, 28 seqq.; 
53, 54, 56. 



Devine, , 350. 

De Wolf, Dr., 148. 

Diggers, 292; various tribes of, 293; 

314. 
"Dirt-throwers" (Oglalas), 26. 
Drum, Colonel, 201, 211, 212; ordered 

to arrest Sitting Bull, 214, 216, 217. 
Dupis, Hypolite, 13. 
Dyer, L. S., 333. 

Eagle Man, John, Indian policeman, 

101, 104, 112. 
Eats-no-Fish, 87. 
Edgerly, Lieutenant, 157. 
Edmunds, Newton, 271. 
Ellen's Man, 333. 

Fargo, No. Dakota, 14. 

Faribault, George H., 44. 

Fetchel, Capt. E. G., 217. 

Fetterman, Fort, 126. 

Finnerty, John F., 132. 

Fire Cloud, dedicates Standing Rock, 
37, 38, 39. 

Fire Heart, 100. 

Five Wounds, 365. 

Forbes, Maj. W. H., appointed agent at 
Devils Lake, 8; character and pre- 
vious history of, 8, 9 ; death of, 29. 

Fort Hall treaty, 292. 

Foster, Charles. 280. 

Fox, Andrew, Sitting Bull's son-in-law, 
215. 

Funds in U. S. Treasury belonging to 
Indians, 402, 403. 

Gall, Chief, 34, 35; love affairs of, 61- 
64; 99, 100; the leading figure on the 
Indian side at the Little Big Horn, 
119-133; a shrewd diplomat and 
skillful general, 121; limitations of, 
122, 123; 134, 137; attacks Reno, 
138, 139, 142; 144, 145; prepares to 
receive Custer, 146 seqq.; attacks 
Reno again, 157; 159, 180; and Sit- 
ting Bull, 182; Indian name of, mis- 



[409 ] 



INDEX 



conceived by translators, 233; 284, 
285, 286, 288. 

Gates, Frank, 115. 

George, Captain, 321. 

Ghost-dancing, described, 202 seqq. 
And see Messianic Movement, Kick- 
ing Bear, and Sitting Bull. 

Gibbon, Gen. John, 123, 126, 127, 130, 
160, 356 seqq. 

Godfrey, Gen. E. S., his story of the 
battle of the Little Big Horn, 117; 
128. 

Grand River, Sitting Bull's camp on, 
184, 215, 216, 219. 

Grandfather, a term held in veneration 
among the Sioux, 236. 

Grant, Ulysses S., President of U. S., 
proclaims "peace policy " in dealing 
with Indians, 6; General Custer out 
of favor with, in 1876, 120, 121; 
"peace policy" of, 330, 391. 

Grass, hereditary name of a line of 
chieftains, 232. 

Grass, father of John Grass, 233. 

Grass, John, 34, 35, 100, 107, 232, 233, 
279, 281, 284, 285, 286, 288. 

Gray Eagle, 100, 206. 

Greasy Grass, Indian name of the Little 
BigHorn, 130; in Mrs. Spotted Horn 
Bull's story of the battle, 165-177. 

Great Sioux reservation, 18. 

Greene, Major, 341. 

Gros Ventres, 18, 24, 250, 251, 253, 256, 
258. 

Guides in Indian country, 19, 20. 

Hancock, Gen. Winfield S., 21, 22. 
Harney, Gen. William S., 265. 
Harris, Lieutenant, 340. 
Hawk ]Man, Indian policeman, 216, 
217, 221. 

Haynes, , 13. 

Head Chief, 304-306. 

He Dog, 134. 

Henderson, J. B., U. S. Senator. 265. 

Hickok, " Wild Bill," 20. 



Hidden Wood Creek, 110, 115. 

High Bear, brother of Crow King, ill- 
ness of, 85 seqq. 

Hill, Samuel, 366. 

His Thunder Shield, 66. 

Hodgson, Lieutenant, 147. 

Hollow Horn Bear, 195, 196. 

Hooker Jim, 327, 328, 331, 332, 334, 
341, 342. 

Horned Dog, 69. 

"Hostiles" at Standing Rock, 33, 34. 

Howard, Gen. Oliver O., 344, 346, 348, 
349,353 seqq.; in pursuit of Joseph, 
358 seqq.; 363, 364. 

Howe, Lieutenant, 340. 

Hudson's Bay Company, 10. 

Hump, 134, 152; and Sitting Bull, 182. 

Hunkpapas, origin of name of, 25; 77; 
supplied many medicine men of the 
Teton Sioux, 86; 98, 99, 107, 116; at 
the Little Big Horn, 136, 138, 149, 
152; 266. 

Hunters in Indian country, 19, 20. 

Hush-Hush-Cute, 349. 

Ilges, Major, 361. 
Indian children, schooling of, 32, 33. 
Indian fighters, professional, 18, 19. 
Indian nomenclature, 223, seqq., 228 

seqq. ; confusion of, led to attempted 

government regulation of, 226 seqq. ; 

misleading character of translations 

of, 228 ; names of women in, 229, 230 ; 

whole universe drawn upon in, 234, 

235; Indian will himself soon feel 

need of simpler system of, 235. 
Indian police, 196, 209, 221. And see 

Bull Head, Red Tomahawk, and 

Shave Head. 
Indian villages, permanent, 258 seqq. 
Indian wars, usual causes of, 17, 390; 

chargeable to bad faith of whites, 

390. 
Indians, position of, during Civil War 

and immediately thereafter, 4, 5; 

roving bands of, a menace to travel, 



[410] 



INDEX 



5 ; every man's hand against, 6 ; phy- 
sical aspect of, 6; in 1871, "halter- 
broke, but not bitted," 7; at Devils 
Lake, 15, 16; their affection for the 
soil, 17, 270; ties of blood strong 
among, 24, 91; various tempera- 
mental characteristics of, 59 seqq.; 
polygamy among, 64, 65 ; love of off- 
spring most common characteristic 
of, 91 ; must not be asked if they are 
sick, 237; when death impends, 237, 
242; curious notions of, concerning 
health, 237-239; concerning hell, 
239; religious beliefs of, 239, 240; su- 
perstitions of, 240; elaborate prepa- 
rations of, for death, often effect a 
cure, 241 ; traces of white man's in- 
fluence on, 260 >eqq.; methods of 
U. S. government of dealing with, 262 ; 
assimilation of, with American body 
politic, a difScult problem, 262; un- 
fair treaties with, and violation of 
treaty rights of, 263 seqq.; commis- 
sions appointed to treat with, 264 
seqq. ; treaty of 1868 with, 266 seqq. ; 
object to exploration of Black Hills, 
268; treaty of 1876 with, 269; atti- 
tude of, toward the agreement pro- 
posed by the Commission of 1888, 
274 seqq.; delegation of, in Wash- 
ington, 276 seqq. ; and the commis- 
sion of 1889, 281-287; shrewd diplo- 
mats, 293, 294; various tribes of, 
with whom treaties have been made 
since 1895, 294 seqq.; Indian human 
nature much the same the country 
over, 296; treaty-making with, 310; 
in Pacific States, 312; independence 
of, in tribal state, 314; sternly re- 
pressive methods generally effectual 
with, 372; their sense of meum and 
tuum not sharply defined, 372 ; funds 
belonging to, in U. S. Treasury, 388, 
402 ; landed property held by govern- 
ment for, 388; unhappy plight of, 
under present conditions, 388 seqq. ; 



importance of problem of, to people of 
U. S., 389; how is the problem to be 
solved? 389 seqq.; General Sherman 
concerning, 390; reasons for degen- 
eration of, 393 seqq.; example of 
their degeneration, 396-399 ; diversity 
of conditions in various tribes, 400 
seqq. And see Modocs, Nez Perces, 
Sioux, and Utes. 

Ireland, Archbishop, 9. 

Iron Cedar, 145. 

Iron White Man, 209. 

"Isaiah," 13. 

Jack, Captain, 315, 318, 321 ; and the 
medicine man who failed to cure a 
brave, 323, 324; becomes a wan- 
derer, 325; and the peace commis- 
sion, 331 ; at Yainax, 332 ; chieftaincy 
of, in danger, 332; 334; murders 
General Canby, 334; commands 
in Lava-Beds, 338; captured, 342; 
hanged, 343. 

Jackson, Captain, 326. 

James, Judge, 365. 

James River, 10. 

Johnson, , murdered by Brave 

Bear, 51. 

Johnson, C. D., 382. 

Johnson, Capt. Carter P., 386. 

Johnson, Henry (Ute), 381. 

Joseph, Chief, military genius of, 344, 
367; his story of the Nez Perce war 
as told to author, 346 seqq.; last 
"peace-talk" of, 349; in ambush in 
White Bird Canon, 352 ; defeats Colo- 
nel Perry there, 353 ; fights General 
Howard on the Clearwater, is beaten, 
and retreats, 354 seqq. ; surprised by 
General Gibbon in Big Hole Valley, 
but defeats him, 357, 358 ; pursued by 
Howard and eludes him, 359; last 
fight of, 361 seqq. ; surrenders to Gen- 
eral Miles, 363; visit of , to Wallowa, 
with author (1900), 366; death of, 
366; monument to memory of, 366. 



[411] 



INDEX 



Jumping Badger, original name of 
Sitting Bull, 181. 

Kellogg, , 152. 

Kennedy, John E., 32, 44, 46 

Keogh, Fort, 92. 

Keogh, Major, 151, 155. 

Kicking Bear, and the Coming of the 
Ghosts, 183 seqq.; new religion of, 
183; and Sitting Bull, 183, 184; an 
exhorter, but no leader, 183; his 
speech, 185-189; a big medicine 
man among the Minniconjous, ISO ; 
ejected from Standing Rock reserva- 
tion, 191. 

Kill Eagle, 34, 100, 150. 

Kiowas, 5, 18, 265. 

Kirk, Rev. Jesse, 317. 

Kittson, Commodore N. W., 9. 

Klamaths, 317 seqq. 

Lakota. See Dakota. 

Lame Deer, 134, 152, 302. 

Lame Deer agency, 302, 303. 

Laramie, Fort, 286. 

Lava-Beds, 315 seqq.; described, 319; 
battle of, 328 seqq., 337 seqq. 

Lechner, , 13. 

Left Bear, 15. 

Lincoln, Fort, 126. 

Little Assiniboine, 206. 

Little Big Horn, battle of the, 123 ; pre- 
liminaries of, 127 seqq.; prepara- 
tions of the Sioux for, 130 seqq.; 
described from narratives of the 
principal chiefs, 136 seqq.; disposi- 
tion of Indian forces in, 136-138; 
Major Reno's ineffective attack, 139 
seqq.; Custer's march against the 
village, 144 seqq.; attacked by the 
Indians, Custer retreats, 149, 150; 
death of Custer, and annihilation of 
his force, 151 seqq. ; described by Mrs. 
Spotted Horn Bull, 165 seqq.; a 
battle, not a massacre, 391. 

Little Bull, 57. 



Little Chief, 307. 

Little Dog, 243. 

Little Soldier, anecdote of, 241-244. 

"Loafers," 26. 

Logan, John A., U. S. Senator, 272. 

Logan, Major W. R., 368. 

"Long Hair," name given by Indians 

to General Custer, 152. 
Long Soldier, 83, 34, 103. 
Looking Glass (brave), 349, 351, 353. 

356, 365. 
Looking Glass (diplomat), 358, 365. 
Lord, Captain, 152. 
Lost River, 322, 325 seqq. 
Loud, Major, 299. 
Low Dog, 197. 
Lucy Provincial, 75, 76. 

Mackin, Father, 278. 

Mad Bear, 66, 284, 285, 286, 288. 

Male Bear, 209. 

Mandans, 18, 24; are they of Welsh 
origin? 249; 250 seqq. 

Marsh, Capt. Grant, 126, 127. 

Martin, Sergeant, 369. 

Marty, Bishop, and Sitting Bull, 65, 
66; 206. 

Mason, Harry, 350. 

Mathey, Captain, 58. 

Matozee, 67, 68. 

Mcintosh, Lieutenant, 147. 

McKay, Donald, 338. 

McKenzie, Alexander, 14. 

McLaughlin, Harry, 101, 107, 111, 113, 
164. 

McLaughlin, James (author), early 
history of, 7, 8; first acquaintance of, 
with Indians and mixed bloods, 8; 
enters Indian service under Major 
Forbes at Devils Lake (1871), 8; ap- 
pointed agent at Devils Lake, 29, 30 ; 
transferred to Standing Rock (1881), 
30 ; dealings of, ^^ith " hostiles" there, 
33, 34; at dedication of Standing 
Rock, 38 ; and the murder of the De 
Lormes, 42 seqq.; difficulties of. with 



[412 ] 



INDEX 



nomadic Indians, 52, 53; and the 
case of One Elk, 56 seqq. ; and Chief 
Gall's love-affair, 62-64 ; relations of, 
with Crow King, 90 seqq.; methods 
of, in dealing -with Indians, 98, 262 
seqq. ; organizes great buffalo hunt, 
98 seqq.; first interview of, with Sit- 
ting Bull, 182, 183; sends police un- 
der Crazy Walking to eject Kicking 
Bear, 191 ; sends second detachment 
imder Chatka, 191; urges imprison- 
ment of Sitting Bull, 192, 197, 199; 
fears effect of military interference, 
201; visits Sitting Bull's camp, 201 
seqq. ; interview of, with Sitting Bull, 
205 seqq.; recommends coercing 
ghost-dancers, 208, 209; plans of, to 
arrest Sitting Bull without military 
aid, 210 seqq. ; letter of, to Bull Head, 
217; and the feud between the Rees 
and their allies and the Santees and 
Cut Heads, 251-259; and the Com- 
mission of 1888, 273 seqq.; confi- 
dence of Indians in, 273 ; ex officio, a 
member of the Commission of 1888, 
275 ; attitude of, toward work of that 
commission, 275; in Washington 
with Indian delegation, 276 seqq.; 
and the Commission of 1889, 281 
seqq. ; secures ratification of agree- 
ment proposed by that commission, 
283 seqq. ; declines oflBce of Assistant 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 290 ; 
appointed Inspector, 291; treaty- 
making chief concern of, in that 
office, 291; numerous treaties and 
agreements made by, 294-314; visit 
of, to Klamath-Modoc countrj', 317; 
and Chief Joseph, 344 seqq. ; visit of, 
in his company, to scene of Nez Perce 
war, 366 seqq.; relations and nego- 
tiations of, with W^hite River Utes, 
376, 381 seqq. 
McLaughlin, Mrs. James, 68 ; anecdote 
of, and Arrow Woman, 241-244; 
284, 287. 

[413 ] 



Meacham, A. B., Sup't of Lost River 
agency, 325, 330, 333, 334. 

Medawakantons, 12, 17. 

Medicine men, and Crow King, 85 
seqq.; defied by him, 88-GO; put to 
death when "medicine" failed, 323; 
this custom indirect cause of Modoc 
war, 324. 

Meeker massacre, 372, 374. 

"Messianic movement" among the In- 
dians, origin and progress of, 183 
seqq.; effect of, 190; how nearly it 
led to a bloody war, 196 ; noticed in 
the press, 197, 198; rapid spread of 
news of, among the Indians, 198. 
And see Ghost-dancing, and Kicking 
Bear. 

Miles, Gen. Nelson A., 177, 210, 346; 
and Chief Joseph, 361 seqq. ; accepts 
Joseph's surrender on honorable 
terms, 363, 364. 

Miller, Thomas, 101. 

Minnesota Massacre, 12, 16, 23. 

Minnewaukon, Sioux name for Devils 
Lake, 9. 

Minniconjous, origin of name of, 26; 
99; at the Little Big Horn, 136, 149, 
152; 266. 

Mission Indians, 312. 

Missourias, 311. 

Modoc war, 316 seqq.; chargeable to 
bad faith of whites, 320; immediate 
cause of, 321 seqq. 

Modocs, 315 seqq.; justice of the cause 
of, 325; commissions appointed to 
treat with, 330, 331 ; punitive expedi- 
tion against, 337; under Captain 
Jack in the Lava-Beds, 338 seqq. 

Moose Dung, 314. 

Morgan, John T., U. S. Senator, 272. 



Names of Indians. See Indian nomen- 
clature. 
Nesbitt, Ben, 13. 
News, spread of, in Indian country. 



INDEX 



Nez Perces, 344 seqq.; t'pper and 

Lower, 347. 
No Neck, 150. 
Northern Pacific R. R., 21, 22. 

Oberly, , Commissioner of Indian 

Affairs, 279. 
Oglalas, 20, 25, 26, 99 ; at the Little Big 

Horn, 136, 149, 152; 266. 
Old Joseph, father of Chief Joseph, 

346, 347, 366. 
011a[ijcutt, brother of Chief Joseph, 

350, 365. 
One Bull, Indian policeman, 185. 
One Elk, murders his wife's kindred 

through excess of zeal for the govern- 
ment, 52 seqq. 
One-Eyed Jim, 334, 343. 
Only One, The, and Brave Bear, 41 

seqq. 
Only One, The, Mrs., 48, 49. 
Osages, enormously wealthy, 401. 
Otoes, 310, 311. 

Pacific Coast Indians, 312, 313. 

Pawnees, 250. 

Peck, Fort, 54, 55. 

Pembina, No. Dakota, murder of the 

De Lormes at, 41, 42. 
Pembina, Fort, 14. 
Pemmican, 11. 
Perronto, Joe, 255, 258. 
Perry, Colonel, 352. 
Peter Skunk, 112. 
Pettigrew, F. A., U. S. Senator, 301. 
Pine Ridge agency, 51. 
Pipestone quarry, 300. 
Pizi, Sioux name of Chief Gall, 165-177 

passim, 233. 
Polygamy among the Indians, 64-66. 
Port Madison Indians, 313. 
Porter, Dr., 142, 143. 
Pratt, Capt. R. H., 274, 278. 
Primeau, Louis, 201, 204, 207, 218. 
Princess Mary, sister of Captain Jack, 

331, 332, 342. 



Proposal Hill, Standing Rock removed 

to, 36. 
Pte, Indian name of the buffalo, 97. 
Pte-San-Waste-Win, Sioux maiden 

name of Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull, 

162. 

Raboin, Edward, 365. 

Rain-in-the-Face, 100, 107; and Sitting 
Bull, 182; origin of name of, 223. 
224; family of, 226. 

Ramsey, Alexander, Governor of Min- 
nesota, 9. 

Randall, Fort, 98, 99, 183. 

Ranson, Fort, 14. 

Red Bird, wife of Crow King, 77 seqq. 

Red Boy, 58. 

Red Canon, 299. 

Red Cap, 384. 

Red Cloud, "the ideal chief," 20; and 
the treaty of 1868, 20, 21; 70, 180, 
266, 268. 

Red Fish, 66. 

Red Horse, 103. 

Red River half-breeds, descendants of 
French voyagexirs, 10; their history 
and character, 10-12; their hunting- 
camp at Devils Lake, 11. 

Red River of the North, 10, 14. 

Red Tomahawk, Indian policeman, 
218, 219; kills Sitting Bull, 221. 

Reedy, Thomas J., 43. 

Rees, 18, 128, 250, 251, 253, 255, 256, 
258. 

Reid, Artie, 152. 

Reno, Maj. Marcus A., 118, 122, 126, 
130; at the Little Big Horn, 136 
seqq.; ineffective attack of, 139, 140; 
retreat of, l42 seqq. ; remains inactive 
while Custer's command is anni- 
hilated, 155, 156; attacked by Gall, 
157, 158; 160. 

Reynolds, Charlie, 20. 

Riddle, IVIrs. Toby, and the Modoc 
war, 316 seqq. ; 323, 333, 335. 

Roseborough, Judge, 331. 



[414] 



INDEX 



Rosebud agency, 73. 

Rosebud reservation, Brules on, 307, 

308. 
Round Valley School, 292. 
Ruffee, Maj. Charles, 13, 14. 
Ruger, Gen. Thomas H., 212, 213. 
Running Antelope, 103, 104, 106. 
Running Bear, rival in love of Spotted 

Tail, 71-73. 
Running Holy, origin of name of, 234. 
Ryan, Thomas, Acting Secretary of the 

Interior, 377; letter of, to author and 

President Roosevelt, regarding Ute 

outbreak, 378-380. 

Saint Paul, Minn., in 1871, 8. 

Sanborn, Gen. John B., 9, 265. 

Sans Arcs, 26, 99; at the Little Big 
Horn, 136, 149, 152; 266. 

Santees, 12, 17, 254, 255, 256, 264. 

Scarf aced Charlie, 318, 342. 

Schonchin John, 318, 321, 322, 324, 
327, 332, 333, 334, 342, 343. 

Senate of United States appoints com- 
mission of Senators to treat vi^ith In- 
dians (1883), 272. 

Seventh Cavalry, at the Little Big 
Horn, 118 seqq.; losses of, 160. 

Shacknasty Jim, 318, 333, 334, 342. 

Shannon, Peter C, 271. 

Sharp Nose, 297, 299. 

Shave Head, Indian policeman, 109, 
115, 215, 217; proceeds to arrest Sit- 
ting Bull, 218-221; death of, 221; 
burial of, with military honors, 222. 

Shaw, William, 253. 

Shell King, dispute of, with Sitting 
Bull, 232. 

Sheridan, Gen. Philip H., 5, 125. 

Sherman, Gen. William T., 265, 2C8; 
on responsibility for Indian wars, 
390. 

Shipto, 24. 

Shoshones, 130, 296-299. 

Sibley, Gen. H. H., 9. 

Sibley, Lieutenant, 132. 

[ 41 



Siute Gleska, Sioux name of Spotted 
Tail, 234. 

Sioux, Devils Lake the resort of, 9; 
their superstition concerning it, 9; 
tribes of, in 1871, 16; history and 
characteristics of, 24, 25; supersti- 
tious veneration of, for Standing 
Rock, 36 ; polygamists by custom, 65 ; 
outbreak of, in 1876, due to the white 
man's thirst for the privileges of min- 
ing in Black Hills, 124; preparations 
of, for battle, 130 seqq.; notes con- 
cerning names of individuals, 223- 
236; chiefs of, at Washington (1888), 
276,277. And see Brules, Cut Heads, 
Hunkpapas, Minniconjous, Oglalas, 
Sans Arcs, Santees, Teton Sioux, 
Yanktonais. 

Sioux, East Missouri, 18. 

Sissetons, 17, 23, 53. 

Sitting Bull, and the treaty of 1868, 21 ; 
35, 38, 46; and Brave Bear, 51; a 
polygamist, 65, 66; 98, 99, 115, 121, 
123, 125, 131, 132; his predominance, 
though not a war chief, due to his 
reputation for "good medicine," 
133; prophesies victory, 133; at the 
Little Big Horn, 140-142; a physical 
coward, 141; 159, 161; whereabouts 
of, during Little Big Horn battle, a 
mystery, 165; character and influ- 
ence of, 180; history of, 180 seqq.; 
first known as Jumping Badger, 181 ; 
a maker of "good medicine," 181, 
182; loss of prestige of, caused by 
disasters of Sioux under his leader- 
ship in Canada, after the campaign 
of 1876, 182; surrender of (1881), 
182; interview of author with, 182; at 
Standing Rock, 183; and Kicking 
Bear, 183 seqq.; manager of the new 
religion at Standing Rock, 184; 
settled on Grand River, 184; a 
zealous propagator of the new cult, 
190 seqq.; breaks the peace pipe, 
192; insolence of, due to non-action 

5] 



INDEX 



of the Department, 192; 199, 2C0; 
continues unmolested in Messianic 
camp, 201 ; at the Ghost-dance, 203, 
204; interview of author with, 205; 
refuses to go to agency, 207, 208; 
plans for arrest of, 209 seqq. ; purpose 
of, to leave reservation, 213; curious 
letter of, to author, 215; prepares to 
leave, 216; arrest and death of, 218- 
221; burial of, at Fort Yates, 222; 
and Shell King, 231, 232; spiritual- 
istic professions of, 241; 268, 269, 
286, 287. 

Sitting Bull, the elder, father of Sitting 
Bull, 181. 

Slocum, Maj. Herbert J., 44, 45. 

Slolox, 334, 343. 

Smith, Hoke, Secretary of the Interior, 
290, 291. 

Spotted Horn Bull, 100, 107, 162, 163, 

Spotted Horn Bull, Mrs., 129, 132, 135, 
136; an eye-witness of the Little Big 
Horn affair, 162; antecedent history 
of, 162-164; her story of the battle, 
165 seqq. 

Spotted Tail, 20; love-affairs of, 70-74; 
180; name of, a mistranslation, 234. 

Soccioff, 384. 

Son-of-the-Star, 253, 258. 

Standing Buffalo, 23, 24. 

Standing Elk, 244-246. 

Standing Elk, Mrs., and her coflSn, 
244-246. 

Standing Rock, a natural phenomenon, 
venerated by the Sioux, 35, 36; 
property of the Teton Sioux, 36 ; set 
up on Proposal Hill, 36-39. 

Standing Rock agency, 30; conditions 
at, in 1881, 32, 33; 54; great buffalo 
hunt at, 97 seqq. 

Standing Soldier, 115. 

Steamboat Frank, apotheosis of, 315; 
334, 342. 

Steele, Judge, 333. 

Stephen, Father, agent at Standing 
Rock, 30. 



Stevens, Isaac, 347. 
Stevenson, Fort, 14, 257. 
Stitsell, James, 44, 101. 
Striker, Bernard, 368. 
Strikes-the-Kettle, 207, 220, 221. 
Sturgis, Colonel, 121, 360. 
Sun-dance, the, 30 seqq. ; abolished at 

Devils Lake, 32. 
Swift Bird, 278. 

Tappan, S. F., 265. 

Tawacihomini, Indian policeman, 32. 

Taylor, N. G., Commissioner of Indian 
Affairs, 265. 

Teller, James H., 271. 

Tepees, 245. 

Terry, Gen. Alfred H., 14, 121, 123, 
126; had little knowledge of Indians 
or Indian warfare, 127; 130, 160, 
265. 

Terry, George (half-breed), 296. 

Teton Sioux, 5, 16, 17; haunts and 
neighbors of, 18; "out" in 1870 and 
1871, 20 seqq. ; 36; medicine men of, 
86; 250, 251, 263, 264, 265. 

Thomas, Captain, 339, 340. 

Thomas, Rev. Dr., 318, 331, 333, 334. 

Thunder - Traveling - over - the - Moun- 
tains, Indian name of Chief Joseph, 
347. 

Tio Waste, 15. 

Too-Hul-Hul-Sute, 349. 

Toombs, Robert,' anecdote of, 337. 

Totten, Fort, 14, 22, 29, 43. 

Townsend, Colonel, 283. 

Trappers in Indian country, 19, 20. 

Traverse, Lake, 53. 

Treaties with Indians, constantly 
broken by whites, 390. 

Treaty of 1867, 29. 

Treafy of 1868, 20, 21, 124, 264, 266. 
269. 

Treaty of 1876, 269. 

Treaty-making with Indians, 310. 

Tribes, origin of names of, 25-27. 

Two Bears, 286. 



[ 416] 



INDEX 



Two Bulls, father-in-law of One Elk, 

54-56. 
Two-Kettles, origin of name of, 26 ; 266. 
Two Moons, 134, 307. 

Uintah Utes. See Utes. 

Utes, an irresponsible, shiftless, defiant 
people to-day, 372; depredations of, 
in Wyoming in 1906, 373 seqq.; still 
unwhipped, 387. 

Vest, George G., U. S. Senator, 272. 
Vilas, William F., Secretary of the 

Interior, 275, 279, 280. 
Villages. See Indian villages. 
Voyageurs, 10, 11. 

W^ahpakootas, 12, 17; origin of name 
of, 26. 

Wahpetons, 12, 17; origin of name of, 
26; 53. 

Wallowa valley, 345, 346. 

Wamnuha, 75, 76. 

Wanata, 15. 

Warner, Maj. William, 280. 

Washakie, 297, 298. 

Washakie, Dick, 298. 

Washakie, Fort, 299. 

Wasicun, the white man, effect of com- 
munication with, on the Indian, 260 
seqq. 



Weir, Captain, 157. 

Wells, Philip, 94, 277. 

Welsh ancestry of Mandans, 249. 

Whipple, Rt. Rev. Henry B., 269: 
quoted, concerning treatment of 
Sioux by U. S., 270. 

White Bird, 348, 350, 364, 365. 

White Bird Caiion, 350. 

White River Utes. See Utes. 

Wind River, Canon of the, 297. 

Winona, name commonly given to first- 
born daughter among the Sioux, 
226. 

Wolf Necklace, 111. 

Wood, Gen. P. G., 222. 

Wood Lake, sun-dance at, 32. 

Wright, John V., 274. 

Wright, Lieutenant, 340. 

Yahoo Snakes, or Ya-hoos-kin, 320. 
Yainax, Oregon, 317; Captain Jack at, 

322. 
Yanktonais, 12, 17, 25, 36, 99, 107, 116, 

266. 
Yanktons, 17, 300-302. 
Yates, Captain, 151, 152. 
Yates, Fort, 35, 98; Sitting Bull's grave 

at, 179; 182, 201, 216, 217, 222, 282. 
Yellow Bear. See JNIatozee. 
Yellow Otter, 206. 
Young Mule, 304-306. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



